Slavonic Language Groups

Oops! I'm sorry, the above message is mine!

i don't know about any of you, but i hate russian cursive writing. i can't understand what the hell any of it says because every letter looks like a "u" or an "n". i can barely even understand english cursive writing let alone russian! at least in english the letters are quite disimilar...disimilar enough to distinguish slightly. and i'm a native russian speaker so it's easier for me since i can sound out the words until it begins to sound like something meaningful. i can't imagine what it must be like for american

I love this thread...it's so interesting and informative. Thanks, everyone.

You're welcome, Damian, soon you'll be getting the bill :-P

michael:

I don't understand what you mean? You don't understand Russian handwriting?

yes, russian handwriting is very difficult for me to read unless the writer has very good handwriting, but i suppose that most russians do have good handwriting, or at least most of the russians that i've known.

my own handwriting is horrendous, however, and since i've lived in US most of my life, i haven't had to write in russian very often. I remember being taught english cursive early in school, but I stopped using cursive by high school because i couldn't even read what I myself had written!

well, perhaps you all could give a show of responses to this string of questions: for those of you that read cyrillic, is it more difficult for you to read russian cursive or english cursive? and do any of you find it difficult to read cursive handwriting in general?

i then wonder: do most other european languages use cursive for correspondences...like french and german for example? or has cursive handwriting also died out over the years (with the advent of e-mail and instant messaging) for these languages as it has for english (or at least, american english)?

<<american english)?>>


i am afflicted by lower case phobia....i know it's my problem...i think i will seek treatment or drown myself ;-(

No...d****t.....it's NOT my problem...it's an American one!

michael, do you live in NYC?

I can easily read Cyrillic handwriting as well as Roman. But you're right in the US people don't write in cursive.

There's a common style of Russian italic script which is very beautiful and easy to read; it's often seen in Russian magazines.

I've had occasion to read other Russians' handwriting and legibility definitely depends on the individual -- I don't think there's anything inherent about the handwritten script that makes it less readable than Roman script.

Dulcinea

Is there a language you don't speak? :-)

Just one correction, Hungarian is NOT a Slavic language.

Sanja, you are right about Hungarian completely. By the way, your name suggests that you are from former Yugoslavia. Am I right? I was also born and grew up in Subotica, though now I live in Hungary.

I think Cyrillic was derived from Greek.

Yes, Easterner, I'm from ex-Yugoslavia, more precisely Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Sanja

Indira Radic is from Bosnia i think lol

Dear Easterner,
I visited Subotica (prounounced Subotitsa) several times back in 1992 and 1993. A beautiful city, near the Hungarian border, with many Art Nouveau buildings. It was a sad time and I made a few friends there. Most of the people there spoke Hungarian although I was interpreting from Catalan and Spanish into English. I visited the local schools, chruches and hospital. I hope that city, and the whole country, will have recovered itself. I also visited parts of Hungary and, specially, Budapest. I was also in other parts of the Balcans. You've brought back memories.