How--and why--to teach handwriting

    Don’t get me wrong; I’m no fan of conventional cursive handwriting.  People increasingly prefer to type, which is fast, readable, and easy to correct.  Once children learned to write the alphabet by hand, they are equally eager to master making it on a keyboard.  In contrast, trying to connect letters into cursive script gives many 8 year olds students their first taste of drudgery, failure, punishment, and a bad self-image. 
   Even though I am a calligrapher by profession, I can make a good case against teaching children to write traditional script.  Most of what we used to write by hand really can be done with a keyboard. 
    But I’ve begun to think it’s a mistake to phase out handwriting in grade schools.   Teachers insist they need the classroom time to teach computer skills, but these computers may look different in 5 or ten years.  It’s likely we won’t even be using keyboards and mouses put down our thoughts and send them to others.  Progress is taking us towards voice input and output, touch screens, and handwritten words on a pad. 
    If we are going to keep teaching children to write, let’s teach them a better system:

• Introduce them to Italic script, which is easier to write, easier to read, and more historically significant than Palmer method and its offshoots. 
• Include more book arts in the art curriculum, where calligraphy will connect students with their creative skills. 
• Introduce students to calligraphy in the study of other cultures, where it provides an important window into other cultures. 

    Today’s students are shaping the future--redesigning publishing, creating new art, inventing new ways to communicate, and redesigning computers, not just using them.  We should make sure that the writing they get taught in school will help them with these tasks. 

Alphabet follows empire Part V: Armenia and Georgia

A special medallion commemorates 1600 years of the Armenian alphabet.

    The final stop on our guided tour takes us to another corner of the former USSR, where the Cyrillic alphabet tried to follow Soviet empire but met a wall of letters.  Many people are surprised to find that the former Soviet republics of Armenia and Georgia never abandoned their distinctive alphabets.  Probably the Soviets were surprised too.  
    The alphabets of both Armenia and Georgia actually predate Cyrillic.  Armenian emerged around 405 CE; its letters resemble Ethiopic, which also grew from common Greek roots.  The Armenian alphabet, in addition, has been a key element uniting the Armenian diaspora following Turkish atrocities of World War I and in keeping the culture of this minority alive.

A Georgian "L"

Georgian letters have beautiful swashes. 

    Georgian lettering can be traced to around 320 CE, part of the same missionary effort that eventually reached Russia six centuries later.  Unlike the compact Armenian calligraphy, its distinctive lowercase letters have long, decorative ascenders and descenders.

Alphabet monument to Armenian culture, Providence, RI

    Because of their deep roots in history and their strong connection to religion, Georgian letters survived the imposition of Cyrillic during the Soviet era.   

Alphabet follows empire Part IV Korea

Hangul is the name of the phonetic Korean alphabet

    It's National Alphabet Day in Korea, where a phonetic alphabet appeared, armed and fully operational, in the 15th century under the inspiration of King Sejong.  Like so many other alphabets in human history, this one served a political purpose; by letting everyone learn to read and write it undercut the power of the elite.  This upper class, which held a monopoly on government employment through the antiquated Chinese system of memorizing hundreds of characters, was threatened by the elegant, logical simplicity of Hangul letters.  The Mandarin establishment tried to disparage the new Korean alphabet with nicknames like “One Morning” or “Just for Girls” because it was so easy to learn. 
    The ten vowels and thirteen consonants of the Korean language are formed out of half a dozen simple brush strokes.  The shapes of the letters themselves suggest how to hold the mouth to pronounce them.  They are combined systematically to make syllables, which each occupy a box.  The Hangul system, in fact, is so logically designed that today’s linguistics experts recommend it for recording newly-discovered spoken languages that have not been written down yet. 

Koreans are proud of their sturdy Hanji paper.  It can be folded into a simple candle shade. 

    A footnote to the story of Hangul: in 1945, after almost half a century of occupation by Japan, South Korea re-established the use of the Korean language in schools and government.  In North Korea, all foreign words and Chinese characters have been weeded out of printed documents; in South Korea, some remain.  Both countries commemorate King Sejong with statues, and celebrate National Hangul Day, October 9, in Korea and in ex-pat Korean communities abroad. 

Alphabet follows empire Part III Mongolia

Ghengis Khan.  

    We saw last week how the tides of alphabet change washed in and out of the former Soviet states such as Uzbekistan, where political upheaval brought Roman, Arabic, and Cyrillic writing systems in and out of official favor every few decades.  Central Asian languages and alphabets shifted along with politics all through the 20th century. 
    Two more writing systems added extra complexity to Central Asia a little further east of the “Stans.” In Mongolia we see the Arabic calligraphy of Islam, the Cyrillic alphabet of Russian, and the Roman letters of English interweaving with indigenous Mongolian vertical script and Chinese ideograms for centuries, in a constantly shifting landscape of religion, economics, politics, and art.
    Even though it combines elements of five different scripts, Mongolian remains unique as the only connected script written vertically.  

    Half a dozen scripts are visible on this Mongolian bill, including Soyombo, an extinct script that survives only in this national symbol, and a “folded” version of Mongolian. 

 Both Cyrillic and Chinese, as well as Mongolian, can be studied and practiced in Learn World Calligraphy from Watson-Guptill, Random House, 2011.

Delger, a Mongolian historian and master calligrapher, stands next to a scroll he wrote especially for Learn World Calligraphy.  It combines vigorous "Virtual Mongolian" brush letters, gray shading, Mongolian tents and their round skylights inside O, G, and A, a horsehair banner flying from a trident-topped L, vertical Mongolian script, and three red signature stamps [including the artist’s face].