For all the dedicated primary teachers who insisted that we’d always need legible handwriting, here’s our retort: Have you ever seen cursive Russian? If you thought deciphering a doctor’s scribbles was tough, wait till you witness the artistic whirls of Russian script.
When Twitter user Christian stumbled upon the Russian cursive alphabet and shared his discovery with a pair of images captioned “Losing my mind after learning about Russian cursive,” we were initially baffled. The photos looked like pages plucked right out of the mysterious Voynich manuscript or perhaps the scribbles of someone attempting to prime a new ballpoint pen.
However, as more Twitter users chimed in with their own renditions of Russian handwriting, the reality dawned on us. This wasn’t whimsy; it was a genuine writing style. So the next time someone critiques your cursive, just mention how a doctor’s note in Russian cursive could easily be mistaken for abstract art. Rest assured, your penmanship is just fine.
Christian tweeted that he'd lost his mind over how crazy Russian cursive is, and the post went viral
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People joined the thread and posted more baffling examples of handwriting in Russian
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Is Russian Cursive Taught In Schools?
If cursive wasn’t hard enough already, Russian cursive letters take it to a whole new level. Still, students learn Russian cursive writing from first grade.
Natasha Alexandrova, a Russian language educator and the author of “Russian Step By Step,” claims that “learning cursive writing gives you an insight into the Russian way of doing it.”
She explains, “Any Russian who went to school will gladly reminisce about the school years when they used Propisi and learned how to handwrite correctly (some have fond memories while others remember rewriting those letters a million times until they were perfect), but everyone had that experience.”
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Someone pointed out that Trump's signature has an uncanny resemblance to Russian cursive
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Do All Russians Write In Cursive Or Is It A Dying Art?
In Russian culture, mastering handwriting is part of the growing process and a notable milestone in a child’s educational and personal development.
Russians almost always use cursive when writing by hand. If someone writes in print, it could be perceived as childish or unnatural, suggesting a strong cultural preference for cursive writing in Russia.
It turns out that writing by hand is so widely popular in Russia that people still write letters, postcards, post-its, notes to family and friends, recipes, contact information, addresses, and shopping lists.
Russian cursive makes this doctor's notice super baffling
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More people shared their handwriting
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If you plan to visit Russia and think that print would suffice, you may be wrong. Natasha suggests, “You will encounter handwritten signs and even names of stores, stations, and other important things printed in fonts that mimic the handwriting.”
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Is Russian in Cursive Really That Hard To Read?
We all know that learning a new language brings a host of challenges. However, when it comes to the intricacies of cursive Russian, even native Russians can get stumped at times.
Apparently, there’s even a term that Russians use, “медицинский почерк” (“medical handwriting”), to describe some extreme examples of hard-to-read handwriting, drawing a humorous parallel to the notorious illegibility of doctors’ calligraphy.
If you’re curious to see just how intricate it can get, take a look at these other examples of Russian cursive below!
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