Since the early days of 2015 when Luu Chu was first formed until now, there have always been questions that Luu Chu wants to find answers to in any of the group’s activities. Those are “What does this script contain? And why does it look the way it does today?”. The series of articles “Overview of scripts around the world” and “History of script development in Vietnam” were shaped to answer these two questions, with the hope that through the upcoming articles, the curiosity and love for the group’s script as well as those who share the same passion will be somewhat satisfied. Starting the series of articles on the history of script systems around the world, the introductory article will focus on three main factors:

CONCEPT
CHARACTERISTICS OF SCRIPT USAGE
MAIN SCRIPT SYSTEMS

Wise men (Homo Sapien) have been on Earth for 300,000 years, and writing has appeared within the last 5,000 years. As a small comparison: if the history of mankind on Earth is condensed into 24 hours, writing would appear at 11:36 PM. Looking at the numerical aspect, writing seems to arrive late compared to the evolutionary process of humans. However, in terms of society, in those 5,000 years, from scattered and small living habits, thanks to writing, humans have built large civilizations with complex and dense social organizations. If writing had been present as soon as the ancestors of humans evolved into Homo Sapiens, the year 2020 would likely be very different from what we have now.

DEFINITION

Writing is composed of characters. When these character strings are placed next to each other, following a certain logic, they create continuous streams of information like trains running through the brain incessantly.
If these characters are arranged in disorder, it will hinder the reading and understanding speed of the recipient, and may even cause them to misunderstand the issue. Therefore, there is a certain rule when it comes to writing, as Powell defines: “Writing is a system of markings with a conventional reference that communicates information.” [1] When the reader understands and can reproduce your ideas, it means that writing has successfully fulfilled its assigned task.

CHARACTERISTICS OF SCRIPT USAGE

Because writing is born out of the desire to convey ideas and words from one person to another or a group of people, it inherently has the following characteristics:

(1) Storage - information, whether small like what you need to buy for dinner today hastily written on a note or in your phone, or larger like knowledge or history in books or encyclopedias, are all data that writing can encode and transmit.

(2) Personal and Symbolic - each line of writing reflects the thoughts of the writer, and each person will have a unique handwriting and way of writing and using words.

(3) Systemization - for each country, the number of languages will not stop at 1 or 2, and for each language, there will be many variations depending on the locality - also known as dialects. In Vietnam, for example, we have one language - Vietnamese as the national language, and 3 dialect systems divided geographically: North, Central, and South. If each dialect requires a different script system, then you need to understand 3 script systems to be able to read Vietnamese fluently at that time. Using a Latin script system for 3 dialect systems helps Vietnamese learners - both in the country and abroad - much easier, as even though there are differences in sound and meaning, they can all be attributed to a script system that the majority of people use.

But because writing contains a lot of information and thoughts, from the individual to the collective or larger national level, it cannot be said that it is not (4) Political and cultural - while each line of writing represents the thoughts of the writer, this characteristic is not just about identification as mentioned above but wants to emphasize the systems of thought and ideas that writing encapsulates.

MAIN SCRIPT SYSTEMS

[2] There are four main script systems in the world. We are familiar with the Latin alphabet system used in Quoc Ngu (1 - Latin alphabet system belonging to the Alphabet), and ancient Vietnamese characters, Chinese characters, Nôm characters (2 - Ideographic characters/Symbols). In addition, we can further divide script systems into two branches: 3 - Phonosemantic and 4 - Logographic (*). When encountering these script systems in future articles, if identified again, Luu Chu will delve deeper into them, but at the current time, Luu Chu would like to leave the definitions to researchers, and note the definitions for references and citations in the References and Notes section below.

In the 5000 years of development, writing did not follow a straight line. To go through more than 300 script systems with 7000 current languages would be a long journey, so Luu Chu will only focus on the main script systems in the world, and the influence of these systems on the language and writing in Vietnamese.
The starting point of the universe is considered the Big Bang, while the starting point of writing is where, and what did writing look like before being molded over time? Luu Chu will devote Article 2 - Once upon a time - The pre-script system to talk about this content. Let’s look forward to it together.

REFERENCES

[1] Powell, B. B. (2012). Writing: Theory and history of the technology of civilization (p.13). Chichester, England: Wiley-Blackwell. (https://www.wiley.com/en- vn/Writing:+Theory+and+History+of+the+Technology+of+Civilization-p-9781405162562)
WEBSITE

[2] Ghosh, D., Dube, T., & Shivaprasad, A. (2010). Script recognition—a review. IEEE Transactions on pattern analysis and machine intelligence, 32(12), 2142-2161. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/47544548_Script_Recognition-A_Review)

NOTES

(*) Currently, there are some concepts that Luu Chu is not sure how to translate into Vietnamese, such as the Hangul script system of South Korea, which many sources call Featural - Luu Chu will temporarily translate it as Symbolic for the most literal meaning of this word. More information about the Featural script system can be found at this link. If there is an opportunity, Luu Chu will have a more in-depth exploration of this Hangul script system in the future.

Nowadays, whenever you travel to a new country, if you understand and can read the language there, your journey will be much easier. Alternatively, if not, Google Translate is still a reliable companion. However, if the destination is Earth in its early days, it seems that language or Google Translate might not be very useful. So how can you communicate with people at that time? If trying to use the Vietnamese language to communicate, it seems like we are hitting a dead end. Is there another way to communicate with them? I believe you can use your hands to draw shapes describing the world around you, and through that, communicate with people of that time. This is also the way prehistoric humans used to exchange information, with drawings found in caves around the world or on later clay or stone tablets. These drawings are the origin of writing - also known as proto-writing. Despite being primitive and rudimentary, proto-writing can be considered the ancestor of over 3000 writing systems that came later.

PROTO-WRITING: WHAT IS IT?

Proto-writing is the origin of writing, using drawings, characters, or easily memorable images to convey very limited information. Writing and proto-writing are similar in that both are used to convey information, but the information that writing can contain is much larger than what proto-writing can provide. To understand this, you can compare the prototype versions of the mobile apps you use every day with the current versions; you will see how much those apps have progressed from their early wireframe drawings.

Even in the current era of scientific development, we still approach and use systems similar to proto-writing every day. For example, in mathematics, concepts of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are expressed by symbols like +, -, ×, ÷. In music, notes placed at different positions on the staff indicate the pitch of the sound. These characters like x squared, delta, or sharp sign in mathematics and music are created to convey a certain limited meaning, but to say that this is writing as we usually know it is still not enough. Even though there is a certain logic behind it, it lacks the language element and representation of daily human communication.

CHARACTERISTICS OF PROTO-WRITING

Proto-writing is the source of writing, so it is very primitive and has many limitations. It can be used to convey the most basic ideas about the world around us - mostly to describe what the eyes see and the ears hear, such as the sun, animals of that time, or about people and tribes in which they live. When it comes to more abstract concepts, such as feeling bored or angry, proto-writing lacks the ability to convey these ideas. Besides, proto-writing does not have a specific language structure, and when looking at proto-writing, it is very difficult to reproduce the language that people of ancient times used.

PROTO-WRITING SYSTEMS AROUND THE WORLD

It's challenging to say how many proto-writing systems existed. Although today we know about more than 3000 different writing systems, many proto-writing systems fell behind without developing into a complete writing system. Proto-writing also took on many different forms, depending on the time it emerged. However, when people talk about proto-writing, many documents mention drawings in caves with traces describing humans and life at that time as the starting point for all proto-writing systems and writing systems later on. This is also considered the beginning of human art history.

PROTO-WRITING IN VIETNAM

In the history of Vietnam up to the present time, we have gone through more than 4000 years. The name of the country, territorial boundaries, and ethnic groups over time have become more diverse. From the research of archaeologists at sites across the country, the results show the presence of proto-writing in Vietnam:

1. Proto-writing of the Lac Viet people, Dong Son Culture - Professor Le Trong Khanh [2]
2. Proto-writing carved on stone found by Victor Goloubev in Sapa in 1925.
3. Proto-writing of the Arem people - a group of Chut people in Quang Binh found in 1956.
4. Guttu script - Proto-writing of the Hre people found in Quang Ngai.
This topic will be presented in more detail in the following chapters related to the formation of Vietnamese language and the Quoc Ngu writing system.

Despite the questions and difficulties in interpreting proto-writing systems, I think proto-writing is very significant for our lives today. Those simple characters and drawings, over time, applied to new contexts in life, have transformed into very familiar language systems to us now. Once upon a time, proto-writing was born. It marked the beginning of the world's civilization and laid the foundation for the great stories that followed.

REFERENCES

[1] Gelb I. J. (1963) A Study of Writing (p.24) University of Chicago Press.

[2] Professor Le Trong Khanh. The discovery of ancient Vietnamese script belonging to Khoa dau type, Publishing House of Encyclopedia Center of Trang An Culture, published in 2010, Hanoi.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

[1] In her 2015 Ted talk, Genevieve von Petzinger - a Canadian rock art researcher - mentioned the similarity in shapes of rock art found around the world, from caves in France and Spain to the other side of the globe in Indonesia and New Zealand. It seems that humans of that time had a shared view of the world, no matter where they were. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJnEQCMA5Sg).

[2] Alphabet Series: The Story of Writing (Part 1) - This video not only covers proto-writing but also talks about the story of characters from the early days until now. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IUBglyvt80)

[3] "The Tree House" (2019) by Director Truong Minh Quy. The film features the presence of ethnic minority communities in Vietnam. In particular, the Chut people in Quang Binh province talk about the caves - where they used to live with proto-writing signs. (https://mubi.com/films/the-tree-house-2019

New scholarship points to a paradox of historic scope: Our writing system was devised by people who couldn’t read

HIEROGLYPHS

Hieroglyphs line the walls in a shrine to the goddess Hathor at Serabit el-Khadim. Courtesy Lydia Wilson Centuries before Moses wandered in the “great and terrible wilderness” of the Sinai Peninsula, this triangle of desert wedged between Africa and Asia attracted speculators, drawn by rich mineral deposits hidden in the rocks. And it was on one of these expeditions, around 4,000 years ago, that some mysterious person or group took a bold step that, in retrospect, was truly revolutionary. Scratched on the wall of a mine is the very first attempt at something we use every day: the alphabet.

The evidence, which continues to be examined and reinterpreted 116 years after its discovery, is on a windswept plateau in Egypt called Serabit el-Khadim, a remote spot even by Sinai standards. Yet it wasn’t too difficult for even ancient Egyptians to reach, as the presence of a temple right at the top shows. When I visited in 2019, I looked out over the desolate, beautiful landscape from the summit and realized I was seeing the same view the inventors of the alphabet had seen every day. The temple is built into the living rock, dedicated to Hathor, the goddess of turquoise (among many other things); stelae chiseled with hieroglyphs line the paths to the shrine, where archaeological evidence indicates there was once an extensive temple complex. A mile or so southwest of the temple is the source of all ancient interest in this area: embedded in the rock are nodules of turquoise, a stone that symbolized rebirth, a vital motif in Egyptian culture and the color that decorated the walls of their lavish tombs. Turquoise is why Egyptian elites sent expeditions from the mainland here, a project that began around 2,800 B.C. and lasted for over a thousand years. Expeditions made offerings to Hathor in hopes of a rich haul to take home.

SPHINX DISCOVERED AT SERABIT

Goldwasser calls the sphinx discovered at Serabit “the Rosetta stone of the alphabet.” British Museum In 1905, a couple of Egyptologists, Sir William and Hilda Flinders Petrie, who were married, first excavated the temple, documenting thousands of votive offerings there. The pair also discovered curious signs on the side of a mine, and began to notice them elsewhere, on walls and small statues. Some signs were clearly related to hieroglyphs, yet they were simpler than the beautiful pictorial Egyptian script on the temple walls. The Petries recognized the signs as an alphabet, though decoding the letters would take another decade, and tracing the source of the invention far longer.

The Flinders Petries brought many of the prizes they had unearthed back to London, including a small, red sandstone sphinx with the same handful of letters on its side as those seen in the mines. After ten years of studying the inscriptions, in 1916 the Egyptologist Sir Alan Gardiner published his transcription of the letters and their translation: An inscription on the little sphinx, written in a Semitic dialect, read “Beloved of Ba’alat,” referring to the Canaanite goddess, consort of Ba’al, the powerful Canaanite god.

“For me, it’s worth all the gold in Egypt,” the Israeli Egyptologist Orly Goldwasser said of this little sphinx when we viewed it at the British Museum in late 2018. She had come to London to be interviewed for a BBC documentary about the history of writing. In the high-ceilinged Egypt and Sudan study room lined with bookcases, separated from the crowds in the public galleries by locked doors and iron staircases, a curator brought the sphinx out of its basket and placed it on a table, where Goldwasser and I marveled at it. “Every word we read and write started with him and his friends.” She explained how miners on Sinai would have gone about transforming a hieroglyph into a letter: “Call the picture by name, pick up only the first sound and discard the picture from your mind.” Thus, the hieroglyph for an ox, aleph, helped give a shape to the letter “a,” while the alphabet’s inventors derived “b” from the hieroglyph for “house,” bêt. These first two signs came to form the name of the system itself: alphabet. Some letters were borrowed from hieroglyphs, others drawn from life, until all the sounds of the language they spoke could be represented in written form.
THE SWEEPING VIEW FROM THE PLATEAU AT SERABIT EL-KHADIM

The sweeping view from the plateau at Serabit el-Khadim, turquoise capital of ancient Egypt. Courtesy Lydia Wilson The temple complex detailed evidence of the people who worked on these Egyptian turquoise excavations in the Sinai. The stelae that line the paths record each expedition, including the names and jobs of every person working on the site. The bureaucratic nature of Egyptian society yields, today, a clear picture of the immigrant labor that flocked to Egypt seeking work four millennia ago. As Goldwasser puts it, Egypt was “the America of the old world.” We can read about this arrangement in Genesis, when Jacob, “who dwelt in the land of Canaan”—that is, along the Levant coast, east of Egypt—traveled to Egypt to seek his fortune. Along with shepherds like Jacob, other Canaanites ended up mining for the Egyptian elites in Serabit, some 210 miles southeast by land from Memphis, the seat of pharaonic power.

Religious ritual played a central role in inspiring foreign workers to learn to write. After a day’s work was done, Canaanite workers would have observed their Egyptian counterparts’ rituals in the beautiful temple complex to Hathor, and they would have marveled at the thousands of hieroglyphs used to dedicate gifts to the goddess. In Goldwasser’s account, they were not daunted by being unable to read the hieroglyphs around them; instead, they began writing things their own way, inventing a simpler, more versatile system to offer their own religious invocations.

The alphabet remained on the cultural periphery of the Mediterranean until six centuries or more after its invention, seen only in words scratched on objects found across the Middle East, such as daggers and pottery, not in any bureaucracy or literature. But then, around 1200 B.C., came huge political upheavals, known as the late Bronze Age collapse. The major empires of the near east—the Mycenaean Empire in Greece, the Hittite Empire in Turkey and the ancient Egyptian Empire—all disintegrated amid internal civil strife, invasions and droughts. With the emergence of smaller city-states, local leaders began to use local languages to govern. In the land of Canaan, these were Semitic dialects, written down using alphabets derived from the Sinai mines.

These Canaanite city-states flourished, and a bustling sea trade spread their alphabet along with their wares. Variations of the alphabet—now known as Phoenician, from the Greek word for the Canaanite region—have been found from Turkey to Spain, and survive until today in the form of the letters used and passed on by the Greeks and the Romans.

In the century since the discovery of those first scratched letters in the Sinai mines, the reigning academic consensus has been that highly educated people must have created the alphabet. But Goldwasser’s research is upending that notion. She suggests that it was actually a group of illiterate Canaanite miners who made the breakthrough, unversed in hieroglyphs and unable to speak Egyptian but inspired by the pictorial writing they saw around them. In this view, one of civilization’s most profound and most revolutionary intellectual creations came not from an educated elite but from illiterate laborers, who usually get written out of history.

Pierre Tallet, former president of the French Society of Egyptology, supports Goldwasser’s theory: “Of course [the theory] makes sense, as it is clear that whoever wrote these inscriptions in the Sinai did not know hieroglyphs,” he told me. “And the words they are writing are in a Semitic language, so they must have been Canaanites, who we know were there from the Egyptians’ own written record here in the temple.”

There are doubters, though. Christopher Rollston, a Hebrew scholar at George Washington University, argues that the mysterious writers likely knew hieroglyphs. “It would be improbable that illiterate miners were capable of, or responsible for, the invention of the alphabet,” he says. But this objection seems less persuasive than Goldwasser’s account—if Egyptian scribes invented the alphabet, why did it promptly disappear from their literature for roughly 600 years?

Besides, as Goldwasser points out, the close connection between pictograms and text would seem to be evident all around us, even in our hyper-literate age, in the form of emojis. She uses emojis liberally in her emails and text messages, and has argued that they fulfill a social need the ancient Egyptians would have understood. “Emojis actually brought modern society something important: We feel the loss of images, we long for them, and with emojis we have brought a little bit of the ancient Egyptian games into our lives.”

NGUỒN:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/inventing-alphabet-180976520/

INTRODUCTION

‘Writing begins with a basic gesture: a hand holding a pencil traces letters on a page. In the 21st century, very young children can “mark” surfaces, whether intended for this purpose or not, by grasping with care “markers” (pens, felt-tips, pencils) that can be handled without risk, no matter how they hold them: the first jubilant scribbles. However, with a pencil, a metal nib or a felt-tip pen, it will still take them several years to master the writing gestures. Could this learning process be made easier? Should children still be taught to write by hand? In the age of digital messages, is it time for schools to discard the pen for the keyboard?’ 1

1 - A.-M. Chartier, L’école et l’écriture obligatoire, Paris: Retz, 2022, p. 7.

Handwriting and how it is taught in primary schools has been the subject of impassioned debate since the advent of mandatory public education in the Western world. Hundreds of articles and books have been devoted to it, presenting, discussing and criticising models and methods of writing. The most recent study published in France, L’école et l’écriture obligatoire, written by the eminent expert Anne-Marie Chartier, provides an impressive historical synthesis and a vivid description of the current situation. Moreover, it is a welcome reminder of the complex scriptural nature of the act of writing itself, made up of choices and power relations:

‘Learning to write means learning a graphic gesture; however, what kind of writing form should one use to learn to write? There have been hundreds of them, as many as there are fonts on our computers. Press articles that oppose cursive and keyboard speak of “the” cursive, as if there were only one, whereas slanted cursive (English Roundhand) is not the upright cursive (Ronde) that has persisted, even after the introduction of print script in nursery school during the interwar years. In Finland, unlike what has been published […], pupils learn to write by hand and with a machine: does this double learning cause problems? Was print script chosen because its letterforms are (almost) those of typographic printing?’ 2

2 - A.-M. Chartier, L’école et l’écriture obligatoire, Paris: Retz, 2022, p. 7.

The text you are about to discover is primarily about the many aspects of handwriting, from the late 19th century to the present day. Divided in five sections, it mainly covers Latin writing, but also Cyrillic and Greek; although far from exhaustive, it attempts to give the reader a broad historical perspective and to highlight some recent and contemporary initiatives.

It begins by examining the emergence of new handwriting schemes in Europe and the United States, developed for the sake of public health, or for business.

FROM SLANTED TO VERTICAL CURSIVE WRITING

Latin handwriting, in the 19th century, derived from a number of calligraphic styles that had flourished in the previous century. The English Roundhand script (or Copperplate), in particular, was dominating Europe and the United States of America. However, new models began to emerge. They were the result of more pragmatic and expedient approaches, stemming from the intensification of business penmanship that accompanied the Industrial Revolution and the growth of the consumer society.

Some of them, such as the Spencerian script, quickly became established in the second half of the 19th century in the USA. This system was developed by Platt Rogers Spencer, with the aim of combining dexterity, speed and legibility, both in the professional and the domestic spheres. All these cursive models were based on a variable slant, up to 52° for Spencerian and 55° for Copperplate. In addition, these transformations benefited from the simultaneous arrival of new writing tools on the market. Quills and inkwells were slowly superseded by ever better and more efficient fountain pens. The nature and flexibility of the nib was also a determining factor in the quality and contrast variation of handwriting.

Changes of a different kind began to appear in Europe during the 1860s, challenging the superiority of the well-established calligraphic styles. The first of these was triggered by Vere Foster, an Irish benefactor and publisher of a series of popular copybooks in the English-speaking world until the mid-20th century. Foster, following the recommendations of several teachers and writing masters, brought forward a new, simplified and smoother design named Civil Service script, comprising three models gradually shifting from slanted to upright. 3

3 - On Vere Foster, See Rosemary Sassoon, Handwriting of the Twentieth Century, Bristol: Intellect Books, 2007, pp. 40–1.

Vere Foster, ‘Civil Service Round Hand’ models, copybook, c. 1895 Vere Foster, ‘Civil Service Round Hand’ models, copybook, c. 1895. Source: fulltable.com/vts/a/artman/wr.htm (last retrieved 3 February 2023).

This first divergence from traditional slanted cursive writing underlines the possible origin of such changes, this evolution towards verticality being considered a ‘rectification’. It is probable that other models, which were to follow in the wake of Foster’s, were devised in this way. However, others may have been inspired by an already vertical style, such as the Ronde, developed in France during the 17th century and in fact revived during the late 19th century.

HANDWRITINNG IN RELATION TO HYGIENE BY JOHN JACKSON

Handwriting in relation to hygiene: (a paper read at the Congress) by John Jackson. Vertical writing in relation to health (a report to the Supreme Council of Hygiene) by A. Reuss and A. Lorenz, London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1891, p. 5.

An educational and ‘hygienic’ movement, led by medical experts, burgeoned in the German Empire and in Austria-Hungary in the 1880s. Its aim was to support the use of vertical writing, in order to prevent certain ophthalmic and orthopaedic disorders caused by the prolonged use of slanted writing. This concern was swiftly echoed in other European countries; around the same time in Great Britain, the professor John Jackson began to define a new model for vertical writing. He attended the Seventh International Congress of Hygiene and Demography in London, in August 1891, and read a paper that was subsequently published, Handwriting in Relation to Hygiene. The final resolution of the congress confidently stated:

‘as the Hygienic advantages of Vertical Writing have been clearly demonstrated and established both by Medical investigation and practical experiment and […] as by its adoption the injurious postures so productive of spinal curvature and short sight are to a very great extent avoided, it is hereby recommended that Upright Penmanship be introduced and generally taught in our elementary and secondary schools.’ 4

4 - Handwriting in relation to hygiene: (a paper read at the Congress) by John Jackson. Vertical writing in relation to health: (a report to the Supreme Council of Hygiene) by A. Reuss and A. Lorenz, London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1891, p. 6.

Following these recommendations, Austrian and German schools gradually implemented ‘a number of reforms involving not only the slant of the writing, but also the vertical space traversed by the pen, the horizontal length of the copy line, and the distance of the writing line to the copy line’.5

5 - The American System of Vertical Writing, book 1, New York: American Book Co., c. 1894.

John Jackson, The Theory and Practice of Handwriting Vere Foster, ‘John Jackson, The Theory and Practice of Handwriting, London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, 1893, pp. 96–7. Within a few years, Jackson’s approach and his articles had garnered much interest in Great Britain and the USA, culminating in his main study The Theory and Practice of Handwriting, which was published in London in 1893 and New York in 1894. It is essential to quote a few excerpts from this fundamental text in order to understand the context and the stakes of such a reform movement:

‘Writing is almost as important as speaking, there being no occupation or rank in life into which as a potent factor and as an energising influence writing does not enter. […] Not only is it thus all pervasive throughout civilised society; it rises to even greater prominence and significance in the case of the hundreds of thousands who as secretaries, copyists or clerks follow writing as their profession or business, and derive from it their sole means of subsistence. Such persons are occupied the year round, for from 8 to 16 hours daily, exclusively in clerical work. […] The writing, and not the writer, has always been the supreme consideration in the growth of the art of penmanship. A certain style of writing was deemed or decreed to be essential, the idea of protest was never entertained, and our ancestors had to bend, cringe and twist under the system of bondage thus established. As to Hygienic principles, these have never been associated even in a remote degree with the history of slanting writing that for some two hundred years has flourished amongst us. […] Indeed physiological requirements have not been recognised, much less urged, until within the past few years, and even at the present day but few teachers would be found to spontaneously admit any possible connection between Hygiene and Handwriting. That these Hygienic principles should be an integral part of any system of penmanship whatever, there cannot be the shadow of a doubt, but it may be emphatically stated that the existing style of oblique or slant writing has been elaborated not only independently, but in spite of every physiological demand. […] Vertical Writing is the only specific for these abnormal postures and their train of disastrous consequences. […] The material difference between this Upright or Perpendicular Style and Slanting Writing is in the Direction of the Downstrokes of the letters; in the former being definitely and absolutely Vertical, in the latter indefinitely and variously Sloped or Oblique. It is incredible what a difference this slight and seemingly insignificant alteration in the down strokes makes, and what an effect it exerts upon the writer. When found in conjunction with the minor characteristics of the system, viz. short loops, minimum thickness and continuity, the results are almost magical. […]

In recapitulation, to sum up the essentials of an ideal handwriting that shall fulfil the requirements of Hygiene, the demands of Calligraphic canons and the needs of a mixed community, it has been proved that such writing must be Upright, Continuous, Simple and Plain, with short loops, and a minimum of thickness. If such a style and system be generally adopted and taught, there will result a generation of writers wonderfully superior to the present generation of scribblers whose penmanship will be a credit instead of a disgrace to their country.’ 6

6 - J. Jackson, The Theory and Practice of Handwriting, London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, 1893, pp. 10–14; 55.

Jackson’s seminal views promoted a new aesthetic of cursive writing, almost breaking completely with previous norms and habits. All of a sudden, a multitude of manuals and models sprung up and were disseminated on the North American continent.

A. S. Barnes & Co., Vertical Penmanship series of copybooks, New York: American Book Co., 1898. A. S. Barnes & Co., Vertical Penmanship series of copybooks, New York: American Book Co., 1898. A few examples can be distinguished from this abundant flow. A. S. Barnes & Co.’s Vertical Penmanship series of copybooks (New York, American Book Co., 1898) display a continuous round model. It comprises several alternate letterforms, including flourished capitals. One can also mention, in the same style, A. F. Newlands & R. K. Row’s The Natural System of Vertical Writing (Boston, D.C. Heath, 1896), and Horace W. Shaylor’s Vertical Round Hand model (Boston, Ginn & company, 1897). In this series of copybooks, Shaylor lists the main qualities of his writing system as:

‘legibility – simpler forms, shorter letters, wider spaces; rapidity – less distance travelled, greater freedom of movement; economy – save space and time by omitting superfluous strokes, more words on a line, more lines on a page; beauty – greater uniformity and simplicity; hygiene – position more healthful, strain on eyes spared.’ 7

7 - . See also H. W. Shaylor, How to Teach Vertical Writing, Boston: Ginn & company, 1898.

Horace W. Shaylor, Vertical Round Hand, Boston: Ginn & company, 1897.
Horace W. Shaylor, Vertical Round Hand, Boston: Ginn & company, 1897.
One additional feature should complete this list: ‘monolinearity’ – low contrast between thick and thin strokes. This was obviously facilitated by the introduction of a wide and diverse range of fountain pens in Europe and the USA.

Upright penmanship models started to compete with the widely used Spencerian, which was itself facing the appearance of more innovative slanted cursive designs at the turn of the century. A new method, effectively developed by Austin N. Palmer as a simplification of Spencerian, shared with vertical writing a few hygienic concerns while advocating a different involvement of the body:

‘In the beginning stages of the work, until good position, muscular relaxation, correct and comfortable penholding, and muscular movement as a habit in writing have been acquired, extra practice may be necessary; but the extra time will be saved many times over in all written work later. Muscular movement writing means good, healthful posture, straight spinal columns, eyes far enough away from the paper for safety, and both shoulders of equal height. These features alone should be sufficient to encourage boys and girls to master a physical training system of writing such as is presented in the following pages, remembering that it is impossible to do good muscular movement writing in twisted, unhealthful positions, or with stiff and rigid muscles.

Straight line and oval drills are of no value except as they lead to writing. They are the means through which to gain the muscular control that will enable pupils to master an ideal permanent style of rapid, plain-as-print writing.’ 8

8 - The Palmer Method of Business Writing…, Cedar Rapids, Iowa: A. N. Palmer Co., 1901, p. 3.

The Palmer Method of Business Writing…, Cedar Rapids, Iowa: A. N. Palmer Co., 1901, p. 29.
The Palmer Method of Business Writing…, Cedar Rapids, Iowa: A. N. Palmer Co., 1901, p. 29.
The Palmer Method was soon followed by the quite similar system of Charles P. Zaner and Elmer W. Bloser. While the manual describing the former ignored vertical writing, the latter’s, published in 1904, offers a blunt critique of the method’s partial demise as its momentum had ran out of steam:

‘Writing should be plain and rapid. The business world demands it. Slow writing is out of date, and illegible writing is inexcusable, annoying, and dangerous. […] Copybooks and vertical writing have fostered form at the expense of freedom, and slow, cramped finger movement writing has resulted. Speed and muscular movement theories have fostered freedom at the expense of form, and reckless, scrawling, illegible writing has been the rule. Form without freedom is of little value, and freedom without form is folly. Form and freedom must go hand in hand or failure follows. […]

The teaching of writing to children necessitated something simple and plain. The vertical met that demand, but failed to satisfy or meet the demands of business. It was suited to childhood rather than to commerce, and thereby failed in general usage at the hands of adults.’ 9

9 - C. P. Zaner, The Arm Movement Method of Rapid Writing, Columbus, Ohio: Zaner & Bloser Co., 1904, preface (n.p.); p. 106.

C. P. Zaner, The Arm Movement Method of Rapid Writing, Columbus, Ohio: Zaner & Bloser Co., 1904, p. 15.
C. P. Zaner, The Arm Movement Method of Rapid Writing, Columbus, Ohio: Zaner & Bloser Co., 1904, p. 15.
These comments also show a clear distinction between the two purposes of teaching writing: first for business employees, and afterwards for the general population. Vertical writing, although discarded in the USA in favour of the new methods of fast and slanted cursive writing, was to fare better in other continents later in the 20th century.

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Laurence Bedoin, Anya Danilova, Petra Dočekalová, Sandro Fetter, Krista Radoeva, Irina Smirnova, Emilios Theofanous, Irene Vlachou and Annie Vogt for sharing their knowledge and resources.