Manual writing

Write with a ballpoint pen

Manual writing , technically also chirography , is the activity of writing by hand with a writing implement , for example a pencil or ballpoint pen . The result is called a manuscript or handwriting , especially in the case of handwritten books and letters . It is also a handwriting if the individual, typical for a person handwriting , as well as something that characterizes his work, in a figurative sense, emerges.

Scope and boundaries

Handwriting includes everything that is not printed with prefabricated letters , including writing that is imprinted in clay with tools, carved in stone or carved in metal.

Technically speaking, writing by hand has a lot in common with drawing . The same tools are used as writing and drawing implements, as well as the same dyes and substrates (e.g. paper ). However, manual writing differs from drawing through the use of unambiguous characters agreed in the respective writing system .

There is manual writing in every font . These include alphabet , syllable and word fonts , as well as combinations of these classes, such as Japanese writing or shorthand . Manual writing includes not only the written language , but also numbers , musical notes, and the like.

With its individual design of each individual character, it stands in contrast to the creation of ready-made glyphs with typographic means such as printing , a typewriter or a computer .

History and writing implements

Tension spring with line and example of writing

Manual writing is the oldest and most original form of writing and can be found in every writing culture . Before the invention of letterpress printing , every font was handwritten, scratched, carved or chiseled.

The Paläographie deals with the oldest preserved writings. The writing materials used included clay, wood, tree bark, leaves, stone and metal. The peoples of the ancient Orient, for example, used a stylus to write incised or indented cuneiform script on clay tablets (writing tablets) . The ancient Greeks, Romans and Etruscans wrote, among other things, with pens on wax tablets , which were reusable: with the spatula-like back of the pen, which the Romans called Stilus , the writing could be erased again.

Writing with a brush made of cane or a writing tube and ink on papyrus or parchment also comes from ancient times . This evolved into writing with a quill pen in the early Middle Ages . The quill in turn became the model for metal nibs at the end of the 18th century , from which the fountain pens developed in the 19th century and the cartridge fountain pens and other ink-based writing implements such as the ballpoint pen or the felt pen in the 20th century . Paper as a writing material was first invented in ancient China, then spread throughout the Arab world and India, and made its way to Europe in the 11th century, where it was finally machine-produced.

At the same time, even in antiquity, lead poured into pipes was used as a writing instrument based on the principle of a pencil . This continued to develop into the pencil , with graphite being discovered as a more suitable material in the 16th century . For a long time in school lessons for beginners in Europe, slate pens were used to write on slate boards. The slates could be wiped off with a damp sponge and used again and again. Teachers enrolled in classes on blackboards with chalk , which allows a large font that can be read at a distance. Here, too, the writing can easily be erased with a sponge and the board can be rewritten over and over again.

In the Arabic and Hebrew scripts, the writing tube made of reed ( Qalam ) remained in use until modern times. In East Asia, writing has been mainly used with writing brushes since ancient times . Today, however, in practically all writing cultures, everyday writing is done with the writing implements customary in the West. The traditional writing implements that were common until the 19th century are still important in calligraphy , as modern writing implements cannot produce the same typeface.

With the invention of the typewriter , the computer and the paperless transmission of text ( e-mail , chat , instant messaging ), the circle of handwritten documents has gradually become smaller. Today, writing is largely entered digitally using a keyboard or screen keyboard, and in some cases using speech recognition . Notes , postcards and greeting cards, as well as on blackboards , whiteboards and flipcharts are still mainly written by hand . With the increasing spread of tablets , they are increasingly used for handwritten entries in notes and transcripts.

Cursive vs. Block letters

Example of a cursive script ( Glagolitic script , 1860)

In some cultures a special font is cursive developed in which the writing instrument are less frequently sold must, so that a faster, smoother writing is possible. The appearance of the letters in cursive can differ significantly from the appearance of the printed letters , so that the writers and readers have to learn the cursive as if they were their own alphabet .

In the German-speaking world, the German Kurrent script was previously used as cursive script as well as Kurrent and Latin script script . Since the middle of the 20th century, the Latin script has been used almost exclusively as cursive script. In practice, many people today use an individual hybrid of Latin cursive and block letters.

In some countries, such as the USA, learning to write handwriting is no longer as important.

When filling out forms , block letters are often required to improve legibility.

Choice of handwriting and individual handwriting

Example of the same English sentence written by the same (Anglo-Saxon) person in two slightly different handwriting styles (2006)

When writing manually, usually only one hand is used to guide the writing instrument. Most people prefer their dominant hand for this based on their handedness . In the past, all children in schools were taught to write with the right hand, regardless of their handedness. In many countries this has now been abandoned.

The individual handwriting, the ductus (writing style), can allow conclusions to be drawn about the writer. In graphology , attempts are made to infer peculiarities of the person who writes from the handwriting. Furthermore, the individuality of the handwriting can also be used to identify the writer of a document. This led to the legal significance of the signature . The comparison of scriptures is a method in forensics .

Health issues

Manual writing is a demanding fine motor activity. When overloaded, a writer's cramp can occur. A tremor when writing can occur as a secondary symptom of various diseases.

Various health causes can make it difficult to write manually even though the fine motor skills of the hand and intellect are still present, which is called dysgraphia . When the ability to write is completely lost, one speaks of agrafie .

Calligraphy and calligraphy

With the school subject calligraphy , the goal is good legibility of the text. The calligraphy that translated also "penmanship" means is, however, the design of handwritten signature with high standards of aesthetics for use in the art or in Graphic Design .

literature

Gernot Böhme : handwriting and physical presence. In: Gernot Böhme / Ute Gahlings (ed.): Culture of privacy in the network society. Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2018, ISBN 978-3-8498-1265-2 , pp. 155–161.
Ludwig Klages : handwriting and character. Bouvier, Bonn 1965.
Urs Büttner u. a. (Ed.): This side of the virtual. Handwriting in the 20th and 21st centuries. Fink, Paderborn 2014.

Web links

Commons : handwriting - collection of images, videos, and audio files