Search results
People also ask
What is old German handwriting?
Why is the German alphabet so confusing?
What is the alphabet in Kurrent script?
What typeface did Germany use?
Alphabet in Kurrent script from about 1865. The next-to-last line shows the umlauts ä, ö, ü, and the corresponding capital letters Ae, Oe, and Ue; and the last line shows the ligatures ch, ck, th, sch, sz ( ß ), and st.
Family Tree Editors. Download this handy alphabet chart to help you in deciphering handwritten Germanic letters you’ll encounter in genealogical records research.
- Blackletter Aka Gothic Script
- Fraktur Script
- Kurrent Schrift
- Sütterlin Schrift
- Offenbacher Schrift.
- Writing in Germany Today
- Germanology Unlocked
Around 1050 AD, Blackletter, those strong fancy “Gothic” letters you see in illuminated manuscripts, developed out of the even fancier Carolingian script, because even in the Middle Ages, there was a need for speed and efficiency (You think your computer printer at work is slow? Try waiting for a group of monks to hand write your new decree…). Stil...
In theearly 1600s, Holy Roman Emperor Maximillian 1 commissioned a woodcut from Albrecht Dürer called “The Triumphal Arch“. Hieronymus Andreae, an associate of Dürer, created a new typeface specifically for the artwork. It included special German characters like the ß and umlauts, that were missing from earlier typefaces. They named it “Deutsche Sc...
Because Fraktur was CLEARLY too complex to use while dashing off a grocery list, people used its handwritten counterpart, Kurrent, (the original old German cursive alphabet )While Fraktur means “broken”, Kurrent means “runs together”. You don’t have to keep picking up the pen when writing in Kurrent. Kurrent was used from the 15th to the 20th centu...
When the 20th century rolled around, the Prussian Ministry of Science, Art and Culture decided it was time to update Kurrent, so in 1911, they commissionedLudwig Sütterlin to create a modern German handwriting system.By 1920, Sütterlin was being taught in schools across Germany. Sütterlin Schrift (Side note- having experienced the rollout of new ma...
Not to be outdone by Prussians, the Hessians introduced THEIR new script, the Offenbacher Schrift in 1927. This script, created by Rudolf Koch, encouraged freedom and creativity! Naturally, since individual Freedom and Creativity were not very encouraged in Germany, especial in the early 20th century, the script wasn’t used outside of Hesse….
The standard didn’t last very long though (naturally), because in the late 60s and early 70s the emphasis in German schools changed from writing to reading. The new Vereinfachte Lateinschrift (simplified Latin letters) corrected all the “mistakes” of the original Normalschrift… mostly where letters end and connect to each other in words. (Let’s go ...
I finished my Reading the Old German Handwriting course! This online class from Germanology Unlocked leads you through the whole process from alphabet to essential vocabulary. There are games and tricks for reading (is that an s? Or a d?). You even get a primer in reading German church records (although there is a whole other class for that here). ...
Fraktur continued to be used to write and print German until 3rd January 1941, when use of Fraktur in public offices was forbidden as it was declared to be "Judenlettern" (Jewish letters). Since 1941 Fraktur has continued to be used to a limited extent, mainly for decorative purposes such as newpaper mastheads, in Germany, Norway, other ...
Sütterlin is based on older German handwriting, which is a handwriting form of the Blackletter scripts such as Fraktur or Schwabacher, the German print scripts which were used during the same time. It includes the long s (ſ) , as well as several standard ligatures such as ff (f-f), ſt (ſ-t), st (s-t), and ß (ſ-z or ſ-s).
Sep 28, 2023 · The BYU tutorial also includes key vocabulary, abbreviations and examples of some key documents, along with tips for using them. It also has old-school alphabet charts that you can print out and use like when you in elementary school - very handy for solidifying those letters in your head.
Oct 10, 2018 · The characters for c, e, n, m, and u, for example, all look very similar, while the h looks more like an f. If you are interested in learning what the old letters look like, study this photo of Kurrentschrift to familiarise yourself with them: Kurrentschrift: Sütterlin (the updated version of Kurrent, used in early 20th Century):
