Handwriting

The topic of how different people write different letters is one
that's been discussed on the list before, with some interesting
comparisons.

For example I once pointed out that in my own writing, the first pen
stroke for almost every letter begins near the top, at one of only a
small number of points (exceptions: 'e', '4', '8'), and no letter is
begun near its base. This had consequences for the very early versions
of my conlang Gzarondan, in which I borrowed some shapes from the
Greek alphabet and made a point of borrowing only those that could be
drawn after the same fashion (by contrast, the Greek capital omega can
only be initiated at its base). Implications for conlang scripts are
obvious: do the first strokes for characters in your scripts all begin
at the same place (e.g. top left corner), or do they begin at various
positions (whether top or bottom, left or right) without rhyme or
reason, or is your script somewhere in between?

Following discussion elsewhere on the Internet, I have uploaded an
idealised version of my printed handwriting to:
http://web.netyp.com/member/dragon/temp/alphabet.bmp (it's much
messier in real life, but I'm more interested in discussing the
underlying forms of letters than their realisations in practise). This
can be used as a basis of comparisons which may lead to interesting
discussions.

Adrian.

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