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I learned cursive in Romania, and I encountered some discrepancies between how I learned and the American way of writing. The first row of letters in the picture is the way I learned, and in the second row I wrote them in print in case they are unfamiliar. The American way can be found doing a quick google search. enter image description here

Which way is more historically accurate? Is there a difference in writing between Europe and America? I know I could just look at some old documents, but most that you find online are American, and I was hoping someone could also give me a more in-depth reason for these differences. Thanks.

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    The lower row does not look like cursive at all. Are you sure you have printed the characters accurately? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… is how cursive looks.
    – Apoorv
    Jun 29, 2013 at 1:54
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    What do you mean by more historically accurate? If you can't answer that, I don't think your question is answerable.
    – Joe
    Jun 29, 2013 at 4:04
  • @MonsterTruck I said that the upper row is the cursive I learned, and the lower row is just the print version of those letters in case you don't recognize what they are, since maybe you learned cursive the way I see it here (in America)
    – Ovi
    Jun 29, 2013 at 5:33
  • @Joe Sorry I just realized how ambiguous that is. What I mean by more historical accurate is which version is found in most historical documents, the way I have shown in the picture (the top row only) or the way they teach in America (which can be found by a quick google search of "cursive").
    – Ovi
    Jun 29, 2013 at 5:36
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    @Ovi, have you considered that both ways of writing may be common? I've seen both of those types of writing in the US, even both used by the same person, in different contexts.
    – Joe
    Jun 29, 2013 at 21:53

1 Answer 1

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The Romanian way is historically slightly older: it is like a style thst was common in the United States around the 1700s-1800s. The current USA style is an elaborated 1900s descendant of that earlier style ... But even that earlier style, itself, descends from an even simpler style that was used in the earliest published textbooks about handwriting, during the Renaissance era. That earlier style (typical of Europe's oldest published books on handwriting) is called "italic handwriting," so you may wish to search that term on Google or Bing.

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    Hello and welcome to History.SE! Per the help center, I've removed your signature. Because your posts are always pre-signed with your usercard, there's no need to re-sign them. :) Again, welcome to History.SE and thanks for your answer.
    – Luke_0
    Jul 5, 2013 at 3:19

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