{{Short description|Style of handwriting}} {{About|generic style of handwriting|personal style of writing|Handwriting|a typeface that imitates handwriting|Script typeface}}
A '''script''' or '''handwriting script''' is a formal, generic style of handwriting (as opposed to personal handwriting), within a writing system. A '''hand''' may be a synonym or a variation, a subset of script.<ref>[https://libguides.hull.ac.uk/archival-skills/palaeography Archival Skills: Palaeography]</ref>
There is a variety of historical styles in manuscript documents,<ref>[https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/types-script Types of Script, Harvard's Geoffrey Chaucer Website]</ref> Some of them belonging to calligraphy,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wang |first=Pin |chapter=Calligraphy and Painting |date=2023 |editor-last=Shei |editor-first=Chris |doi=10.4324/9780367565152-RECHS4-1 |editor-last2=Wang |editor-first2=Bo}}</ref> whereas some were set up for better readability, utility or teaching (teaching script).<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jun/29/germany-teachers-handwriting-schools-schreibschrift | title=German teachers campaign to simplify handwriting in schools | newspaper=The Guardian | date=29 June 2011 | last1=Pidd | first1=Helen }}</ref> see History of the Latin script.
Historic styles of handwriting may be studied by palaeography.
Personal variations and idiosyncrasies in writing style departing from the standard hand, which may for example allow the work of a particular scribe copying or writing a manuscript to be identified, are described by the term handwriting (or hand).
thumb|300px|The evolution of the minuscule Latin hand
==List of hands== *Chancery hand *Round hand *Secretary hand *Court hand *Library hand *Blackletter *Humanist minuscule *Carolingian minuscule *Roman cursive *Uncial script *Insular script *Beneventan script *Visigothic script *Merovingian script
== References == {{reflist}}
== Sources == * {{cite book | last=Florey | first=K.B. | title=Script and Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting | publisher=Melville House | year=2013 | isbn=978-1-61219-305-2 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c7CRrquqifEC | access-date=2024-06-16}} * {{cite book | last=Douglas | first=A. | title=Work in Hand: Script, Print, and Writing, 1690-1840 | publisher=OUP Oxford | series=Oxford Textual Perspectives | year=2017 | isbn=978-0-19-250621-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UN4-DgAAQBAJ | access-date=2024-06-16}} * {{cite book | last=Thornton | first=T.P. | title=Handwriting in America: A Cultural History | publisher=Yale University Press | year=1996 | isbn=978-0-300-07441-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g5cHxU9EXjkC | access-date=2024-06-16}}
Category:Palaeography * Category:Penmanship Category:Graphology Category:Questioned document examination
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