Russian cursive

The standard modern Russian Cyrillic cursive alphabet with uppercase and lowercase letters, used in school education.

Russian calligraphic handwriting from a Russian schoolbook (1916).

19th century variants of Russian calligraphic cursive letters.

Russian cursive ((ру́сское) рукописное письмо "(Russian) hand-writing script",^[1] not to be confused with ско́ропись "tachygraphy") is the handwritten form of the modern Russian Cyrillic script, used instead of the block letters seen in printed material. In addition, Russian italics for the lowercase letters are often based on Russian cursive (such as lowercase Т: т, which looks like Latin m). Most handwritten Russian, especially personal letters and schoolwork, uses the cursive alphabet. In Russian schools, most children are taught by first grade how to write using this script.

History

Russian (and Cyrillic in general) cursive was developed during the 18th century on the base of earlier Cyrillic tachygraphy,^[2] re-shaped under the influence of contemporary Latin-based cursives.^[3] It became handwritten counterpart of so-called civil (or Petrine) script of printed books. In order, modern Cyrillic italic typefaces are based (in their lowercase part) mostly on the cursive shape of letters.

The Latin influence on the Russian cursive resulted in numerous characters that are similar or completely identical to Latin ones. For example, modern Russian cursive letters АВДЕИКНОРСУХавдезиопрстухч may coincide with Latin cursive ABDEUKHOPCYXabgezuonpcmyxr, respectively (despite on the completely different sound values in many cases); both upright and italic printed typefaces demonstrate less similarity.

Features

Russian cursive is often more ambiguous than English cursive. Several letters look markedly different from their block counterparts and a few letters look similar to one another, especially when written sloppily. Another (and unavoidable, even in the "ideal" calligraphic cursive of ABC books) source of the ambiguity is the fact that several lowercase cursive letters consist (entirely or in part) of elements identical to dotless Latin cursive "i" or to a half of cursive "u": и=ı+ı, ш=ı+ı+ı, м=л+ı, щ=ı+ц, ы=ь+ı; therefore, certain combinations of these letters cannot be unambiguously "parsed" without a broader context. For example, л+ı+ı+ı can be interpreted either as л+(ı+ı+ı)=лш(лш), as in волшебник (волшебник, "magician"), or as (л+ı)+(ı+ı)=ми(ми), as in домик (домик, "little house"). There are examples of different words that become absolutely identical in cursive form, e.g. мщу (мщу, "(I) revenge") and лицу (лицу, "(to) a face"): here (л+ı)+(ı+ц)=мщ (мщ), л+(ı+ı)+ц=лиц (лиц).

Unlike English cursive, however, the Russian cursive system is not considered a "formal" style of writing. It is standard practice for Russians to write in cursive almost exclusively. In informal cursive, the distinction may disappear between such letters as и (и), н (н) and п (п) (plus а and к in a yet less accurate style; compare with Latin cursive u/n/a), as well as between д (д) and у (compare with Latin cursive g/y), between с and е (compare with Latin cursive c/e), between т (т) and ш (ш), etc. To alleviate the last case of the ambiguity, a horizontal bar can be written above the character if it is т or below if it is ш. Also, writing т as т rather than its usual m shape (т) is common.

Fonts

Several fonts have been designed to mimic Russian cursive handwriting,^[4] most notably Propisi by ParaType.^[5]

See also

• Cursive
• Macedonian cursive
• Cursive Hebrew
• Roman cursive
• Russian alphabet

References

External links

• Russian cursive writing practice sheet

Types of handwritten European scripts Ancient and Medieval Roman Rustic Uncial Visigothic Merovingian Carolingian Insular script Beneventan Blackletter Rotunda Bastarda Humanist Greek Cyrillic Glagolitic Court hand Gothic Modern Cursive Chancery Italic Round Secretary Library D'Nealian Copperplate Spencerian Kurrent Sütterlin Grundschrift Cyrillic Shorthand