Wednesday, September 13, 2006

A long-standing question answered:

By a simple Google search of course. Sigh. Anyway, I and many like me have inevitably wondered whether and how Greek is written in cursive. It seems an obvious thing to do, but the textbooks coyly refrain from mentioning the issue. My first Russian textbook presented the cursive script in chapter one, so I've long been aware that even such Easternmost of Westerners are capable of and amenable to cursive writing. At last, a chatroom thread provides some answers:

As so many Greek students must have reflected, the whole affair just does not seem suited to cursive: much more awkward than the Russian, and many Russian authors have let us know at great length just how hard it is to outdo a Russian in awkwardness (Peculiar is currently reading Dostoevsky's The Gambler). Look at pi, lambda and kappa: ugh! how on earth does one tell pi from omega in practice? By being a Greek, I suppose. Co-religionists or no, I'd just as soon be a bloodthirsty Turk. I'm rather pleased with psi, though.