Cursive vs Print

A discussion of the peculiarities of languages and the differences between them.
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gailr
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Postby gailr » Fri Aug 11, 2006 9:00 pm

What color where the ink back in Catholic school? Black & blue were popular this century, but in the 1800’s there seems to have been a lot of umber colored ink. Leonardo Da Vinci notes are all brown ink.
Eric
I thought the inks were all blue or black and that the umber color was due to the breaking down of pigments and acids in the paper over time. What materials produced the umber color come from?
-gailr

skinem
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Postby skinem » Fri Aug 11, 2006 9:52 pm

Thank you, Gail. Interesting.
I'm glad to see I haven't forgotten everything I've learned before. There's only so much room in there, and if I learn something new, something old has to go!

Palewriter
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Postby Palewriter » Fri Aug 11, 2006 10:18 pm

There's only so much room in there, and if I learn something new, something old has to go!
That's an interesting and endearing concept. There's a saying in Swedish:

Summan av dina laster är alltid konstant....or....the sum total of your bad habits remains constant.

So when people ask me to quit drinking, smoking, eating juicy steaks, chasing pretty girls (etc, etc), I ask them what bad habit they think I should adopt instead.

Generally, they stare at me like I'm an idiot.

-- PW
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow!!! What a ride!"

frank
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Re: On the subject...

Postby frank » Sat Aug 12, 2006 4:52 am

Hi,
When I have been to the museum, I have noticed that Sanskrit and Arabic alphabets have many styles. Several of them seem to have a block form and then a cursive form. Am I correct is assuming some forms of these are cursive?
Here you find excellent explanations about and examples of Arabic abjads in different calligraphic styles.
Hereyou find four styles, and the last two come closest to 'regular handwriting': the stretched letters, the compact letters and the tendency (in 4) to go from right up to left down /.

You wrote about the 'block script', do you mean
this or this (the last style on this page can be found on many old mosques, e.g. in Isfahan).

Groetjes,

Frank

PS
Completely off topic, but as I was searching for a picture of the mosque in Isfahan, I stumbled upon following site. I think it might be interesting:
on http://www.world-heritage-tour.org/map.html you find a load of momuments of the Unesco World Heritage List with a 360° view.

malachai
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Re: On the subject...

Postby malachai » Sat Aug 12, 2006 12:28 pm

When I have been to the museum, I have noticed that Sanskrit and Arabic alphabets have many styles. Several of them seem to have a block form and then a cursive form. Am I correct is assuming some forms of these are cursive? Also, I have seem writing from Tibet that has several styles some very cursive like in style.
Sanskrit is written in devanagari script. It is cursive in the sense that the letters are connected by a horizontal line above them.
This old form is quite different from modern standard devangari (it's also upside down):
http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/personal/ ... tm#tabelle

there are a lot of images here
http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/scripts.html

eberntson
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Ah, light dawns...

Postby eberntson » Mon Aug 14, 2006 10:20 am

Ask an innocent question & learn something new... :shock: You are correct the inks started out blue/black and then faded to brown (Wikipedia) :idea: . Apparently, this is due to the iron oxide that is in the ink, which doesn’t fade and leave the brown tint. That is why I like this forum spelling, grammar, history, chemistry, etc...

I have found that many modern black inks fade to a drab yellow, especially in art that was done with regular pens & left in the sun.

Thanks...
Eric
EBERNTSON
Fear less, hope more;
eat less, chew more;
whine less, breathe more;
talk less, say more,
and all good things will be yours.
--R. Burns

Perry
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Postby Perry » Mon Aug 14, 2006 10:30 am

Nice taglines eberntson.
"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Lately it hasn't been working."
Anonymous

Bailey
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Postby Bailey » Mon Aug 14, 2006 12:02 pm

[I ask them what bad habit they think I should adopt instead.

Generally, they stare at me like I'm an idiot.

-- PW
I get that, but I think it's less because of our weird ideas and patterns of speech than that we are seen as "old", which to our co-workers we are.

mark is-betting-that-PW's-coworkers-are-children-also Bailey
I've always thought that 'coworkers' makes it seem like I'm a ranchhand in pc-speak.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Make the most of it...
kb









Palewriter
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Postby Palewriter » Mon Aug 14, 2006 12:29 pm

I get that, but I think it's less because of our weird ideas and patterns of speech than that we are seen as "old", which to our co-workers we are.

mark is-betting-that-PW's-coworkers-are-children-also Bailey
I've always thought that 'coworkers' makes it seem like I'm a ranchhand in pc-speak.
The average age where I work is 27. Should I leave, it would probably plummet to about 15. :D However, the average IQ might rise to compensate.

-- PW
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow!!! What a ride!"

eberntson
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Thx

Postby eberntson » Mon Aug 14, 2006 1:36 pm

Thanks Perry, they strike my fancy for now.

Eric
EBERNTSON
Fear less, hope more;
eat less, chew more;
whine less, breathe more;
talk less, say more,
and all good things will be yours.
--R. Burns

anders
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Re: On the subject...

Postby anders » Mon Aug 14, 2006 5:15 pm

This old form is quite different from modern standard devangari (it's also upside down):
http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/personal/ ... tm#tabelle
I hesitate to call the upside-down lines (in the middle; below the Persian) devanagari. They seem to be very influenced by the ranjana script. The bottom three plus lines are devanagari the correct way.
Irren ist männlich

malachai
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Re: On the subject...

Postby malachai » Mon Aug 14, 2006 10:56 pm

anders,
It looks more devanagari than ranjana to me. I think I can recognize some of the letters, especially when I turn it over.

I bought this book in India. I assumed this was an old form of devaganari. Do you know?
Last edited by malachai on Thu Feb 18, 2010 12:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

anders
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Re: On the subject...

Postby anders » Tue Aug 15, 2006 11:18 am

anders,
It looks more devanagari than ranjana to me.
Yes, but I wrote "influenced".
I think I can recognize some of the letters, especially when I turn it over.
I printed and turned, it and yes. What puzzled me besides that right-leaning flourish was a letter that I think is a ya य; it occurs with a stroke in it which should be a Sha ष, but the outline is a mean value of those. On the other hand, my assumed ya looks pretty much like a pha in the Modi script etc.
I bought this book in India. I assumed this was an old form of devaganari. Do you know?
I read written devanagari, and sometimes manage nicely handwritten Hindi, but I manage few letters in your book. The ':' suggests Sanskrit. At the end of the 3rd last line there is what might be ligature of ङ and ग, giving the ending 'ng-gaah'. 'ng' fell into disuse long ago and was replaced by the nasalization dot above.

So, not finding perfect correspondences on the Internet, I think '(old) devanagari versions' is probably the best we can do.
Irren ist männlich

Sunny
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Postby Sunny » Fri Sep 01, 2006 9:46 am



I gave up the pen and pencil ages ago, and now they are used to hold down papers on my desk. I am left-handed and my printing always took up more space than was allowed, and my writing could never decide which way it wanted to slant, so the keyboard became my best friend.

I was recently dating a nice fella, he asked me to put my thoughts for our future down on paper so we could discuss it one night over dinner. At the time I thought this was a great concept. I got busy at the computer and spilled my thoughts and adorations of love on the computer for pages. Spell checked, edited, and adjusted the font to meet my mood. Something that resembled cursive...with a nice slant.

The fella that I was dating brought me a scribbled scrap of paper, no bigger than a post-it-note, with chicken scratch for his thoughts. He wrote that he would like to camp 5 times a year. That’s it! That’s all the future he could see!

Needless to say, the difference spoke volumes to both of us, and he has gone back to his cave somewhere, and I continue to sip martinis and keep an eye out for a suitable and compatible man!
:P

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love. Sophocles (496 BC - 406 BC)

Huny
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Postby Huny » Fri Sep 01, 2006 12:24 pm



Needless to say, the difference spoke volumes to both of us, and he has gone back to his cave somewhere, and I continue to sip martinis and keep an eye out for a suitable and compatible man!
:P

[/i]

Sunny, this is Huny. I'm about to do some male bashing, for those men who choose not to look. 8) The nerve of some men! We, as humans, have spent millenia bringing ourselves out of the woods and caves and into civilization as we know it today. Now, all men want to do is turn right around and go back into said woods and caves and call it "camping". This sets man back a good bit, don't you think? :wink:

Huny - I-will-not-be-bear-bait-for-no-man. (Don't-shoot-me-Bailey! :shock: )
"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compaired to what lies inside us." R.W.E.


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