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Relearning my handwritten Cyrillic
25 May 2025 05:55 pmI finally bit the bullet and decided I really ought to look up the cursive Cyrillic alphabet again so that I can actually write things down in Russian (even if I can't type them). I used to be able to write long essays in this stuff -- I never did get terribly fluent in blind touch-typing in Russian, an absolute requirement since you could switch the computer keyboard layout you were using but not the physical keycaps, but handwriting was rather faster.
Anyway, I found a calligraphy chart and copied it out onto a bit of paper, and apart from a bit of remaining confusion between the cursive 'd' and 'b' (looks rather like an English 'd') and uncertainty about how to form the 'f' (a pretty rare letter, which is probably why it doesn't seem to join or write fluently) -- and an ongoing mental blank as to which way to loop the pen to form the little hitches at the bottom of the 'ts' and 'shch' -- it has mostly come back very quickly :-)
Capitals might be another story, as there are just a few that differ from their minuscule versions, and one doesn't get a lot of practice in them. And of course there is the ancient problem of differentiating the 'i', 'm' and 'l' (exactly the same issue that you get when writing 'm', 'n' and 'u' in a strict italic hand in English calligraphy, and the reason why I was taught to put dashes on my Ms and Ws in German... and still for my own benefit try to do so for the 'T' and 'SH' in Russian!)
( Cyrillic calligraphic chart )
My own handwriting with an ordinary (i.e. non-italic) nib; I can see I'm having trouble joining the 'o' and 'm', and the 'i' and 'ch', while nothing ever does join to a 'b'. Actually, apparently it does in the calligraphic example given, explicitly entitled 'Azbuka' (alphabet) :-p
The actual practice text *blush* consists of what I was reading/looking at last night, which is the YouTube hashtag "trimushkyetyora" (misspelt!), a quotation from a transcript of an interview with the actor who played Soviet Porthos (Valentin Smirnitsky), "I don't like to watch my own films because all I can see is the mistakes", a pretty common sentiment among actors, I think, and (upside down in pencil) an earlier attempt at transcribing a snatch of lyrics from the song I've been translating ;-)
Anyway, I found a calligraphy chart and copied it out onto a bit of paper, and apart from a bit of remaining confusion between the cursive 'd' and 'b' (looks rather like an English 'd') and uncertainty about how to form the 'f' (a pretty rare letter, which is probably why it doesn't seem to join or write fluently) -- and an ongoing mental blank as to which way to loop the pen to form the little hitches at the bottom of the 'ts' and 'shch' -- it has mostly come back very quickly :-)
Capitals might be another story, as there are just a few that differ from their minuscule versions, and one doesn't get a lot of practice in them. And of course there is the ancient problem of differentiating the 'i', 'm' and 'l' (exactly the same issue that you get when writing 'm', 'n' and 'u' in a strict italic hand in English calligraphy, and the reason why I was taught to put dashes on my Ms and Ws in German... and still for my own benefit try to do so for the 'T' and 'SH' in Russian!)
( Cyrillic calligraphic chart )
My own handwriting with an ordinary (i.e. non-italic) nib; I can see I'm having trouble joining the 'o' and 'm', and the 'i' and 'ch', while nothing ever does join to a 'b'. Actually, apparently it does in the calligraphic example given, explicitly entitled 'Azbuka' (alphabet) :-p
The actual practice text *blush* consists of what I was reading/looking at last night, which is the YouTube hashtag "trimushkyetyora" (misspelt!), a quotation from a transcript of an interview with the actor who played Soviet Porthos (Valentin Smirnitsky), "I don't like to watch my own films because all I can see is the mistakes", a pretty common sentiment among actors, I think, and (upside down in pencil) an earlier attempt at transcribing a snatch of lyrics from the song I've been translating ;-)