Cursive Writing Is Dying

Michael Anderson

29 November 2012

Here we are, in the 21st century, where technology that could never have been conceived in the ages of knights in shining armor, is a reality. Messages no longer have to travel by horse, pigeon, or wizard. We have email, texting, and telephones. Death can occur from any distance, at any given time. With modern technology, we can use remote explosives, missiles, and extreme distance snipers to remove a target with but a single spoken word, or the touch of a button. You can die now from far more than just an arrow. We are going to speak about the future, but we will not be talking about the technology of tomorrow. Instead, we will cover the future of one of the most historic items in our countries history, cursive writing, and in a world filled with keyboards, keypads, cellphones, and other devices that eliminate the need to write quickly. What is the future of this, beautiful historic writing style?

Instead of addressing cursive in every single language, we will be looking at primarily the style that laid out the building blocks to form cursive as it is today. Aldus Manutius initially conceived this style in the 14th century (Wikipedia). Manutius and others in the age of the Renaissance did not come up with cursive, as we know it today; they created what is now known as the Italic style that, according to Wikipedia, is formed by slanting the written letters slightly to the right. Cursive as we know it today, did not form overnight, but instead was developed over the centuries by trying to both make Italic style easier to write, and much more decorative. Outright changing some letter shapes, and adding loops to make the cursive we know today possible.

Cursive developed into, roughly, its modern form nearly 3 centuries after Manutius came up with his Italic style, around the 17th century. It was used primarily in the British Empire, but was not even close to being a standard writing style. Without the development the Italic...