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"You can learn to read cursive quickly." The same is true about Fraktur (the old German script), and yet few people are capable of reading pre-1940 books types
by inglor_cz 4y ago
"You can learn to read cursive quickly."
The same is true about Fraktur (the old German script), and yet few people are capable of reading pre-1940 books typeset in Fraktur.
There is no way around it, the vast majority of people won't learn old scripts and they won't be able to read their grandparents' correspondence etc.
This might be worth the progress, but let's not pretend that the continuity rupture is smaller than it is.
- nier 4y agoThis is what I found when trying to understand the history of Fraktur. It’s complicated to say the least: "Fraktur is often associated with being the official Nazi font and is still being used by Neo-Nazi groups in Germany today. The fact that it was, ironically, banned by the Nazi Party is just a part of its long and strange history" Source: https://www.typeroom.eu/a-nazi-font-banned-by-nazis-fraktur-legacy-must-listen-design-podcast https://www.typeroom.eu/a-nazi-font-banned-by-nazis-fraktur-...
- inglor_cz 4y agoYes, the Nazis ironically considered Fraktur (whose existence massively predates Nazism, by hundreds of years) a Jewish influence and got rid of it. After the ban, the only place where it survived were tombstones.
- kleiba 4y agoAlso here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiqua%E2%80%93Fraktur_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiqua%E2%80%93Fraktur_disput...
- Koshkin 4y agoCuriously, the same goes for the stahlhelm which is widely seen as the signature item of the Nazi military. In truth, it was simply the traditional helmet of the German military which the Nazi wanted to replace with a more modern design, but it was already too late for them, and it was the GDR military that ended up using it.
- barnabee 4y agos/cursive/COBOL/ Being able to understand old stuff is not a skill everyone needs to attain at school. If you need it for your chosen academic or career path, you’ll learn it.
- tdeck 4y agoThis makes me wonder (as a 30 year old who can't read cursive well). Can folks easily read English script writing from the 18th/19th century? The script writing from earlier eras looks fairly different from 20th century cursive.
- shadowofneptune 4y ago19th century is rather easy, 18th century writing, with difficulty. The cursive taught in schools this last century is a streamlined, more practical hand.