Cursive Handwriting

The Nordic Heritage Teen Council has been discussing heritage through the lens of arts and crafts.  We have also talked about what makes up our own personal heritage, so I decided to write about cursive handwriting because it is a part of how I identify my own heritage.  

Cursive handwriting has been prevalent ever since there was written language.  From Ancient Egyptian to Roman, from Arabic to Chinese, these languages all developed a type of connected or continuous style for their handwriting.  Cursive means “running” and comes from Italian cursivo and Medieval Latin cursivus.  Fine handwriting was considered a professional skill in 18th and 19th century America because all professional correspondence was done in cursive.  There were even entire schools dedicated to handwriting. Since the 18th century to the present, there have been many different styles of cursive.  Here is a famous example of handwriting; the Declaration of Independence.

Today, there is a debate on the legitimacy of continuing to teach cursive handwriting in schools.  Keyboarding is now being taught so students become proficient using electronic communication. A lot of school curriculum is no longer requiring cursive because it is no longer used in society.  Many argue that if teaching cursive becomes a thing of the past we will lose the ability to read important documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  I will finish this blog post in my own handwriting because why type about the importance of handwriting?