Various Forms of Letters

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

bugtilaheh and I were comparing different forms of various Cyrillic letters, and found that in Italicized Arial (and I think Helvetica) some letters have different forms. Compare: [sorry, too lazy to make a table right now, but these should line up]

д, г, и, й, т, в, ш, щ
д, г, и, й, т, в, ш, щ

Also, I found that uppercased Л becomes Л in Bookman Old Style. Are Cyrillic letters commonly written differently? Is it because they are in cursive, and as in our alphabet, cursive letters take on a different form? What about the printed letters, do they look roughly like the letters used in Verdana, Times New Roman, etc?

Hi, I'm new here. I'm not really sure why I haven't joined yet. I'm interested in all language, really, though some I pay more attention to than others. To be honest, Russian is not in my top 5, however I find it very interesting and useful, with the large Ukranian and Russian population in my county. Mostly, though, I just use Russian to райт Енглыш фонетикли, which is a bit of a hobby of mine.

I have some links and other things which I might be posting from time to time, and I'll also be hanging around, looking at lessons and updates. I'll try to stear away from those annoying "How do you say ____ in Russian" questions, unless I really need to know.

I'm a member of several communities that you might find interesting:
ru_userpics Like any icons community, only the lingua franca here is Russian
antiamerican Not trying to imply anything about Russians, it's just that this community's lingua franca is also Russian
linguaphiles All purpose linguistics community

I also moderate learn_languages. Glad to be here!

Comments

[kasak.livejournal.com]

The reason why those letters look different in italics is because that's what the cursive/handwritten letters would look like (or reasonably close.) Same reason why the letter Л becomes Λ.

Cyrrilic letters are written in whatever style the writter or font-maker thinks he or she can get away with and still have the letters be readable, much like in any other language.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

First, let me welcome you to the community and apologize for any oddness in this comment. My cursor seems not to be working correctly. :/

Cursive Cyrillic letters can look a lot different than they do in their printed forms. For example, т looks almost exactly like a lowercase English m. You can see examples of cursive Cyrillic here (http://masterrussian.com/blalphabet.shtml).

Italic sometimes seems to try to find a medium between cursive and printed Cyrillic, but other times - for example, with

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<bд</i>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

First, let me welcome you to the community and apologize for any oddness in this comment. My cursor seems not to be working correctly. :/

Cursive Cyrillic letters can look a lot different than they do in their printed forms. For example, <B>т</B> looks almost exactly like a lowercase English </I>m</I>. You can see examples of cursive Cyrillic <A HREF="http://masterrussian.com/blalphabet.shtml">here</A>.

Italic sometimes seems to try to find a medium between cursive and printed Cyrillic, but other times - for example, with <I><Bд</I></B>, it does something completely different. I have no idea why.

I do know that <B>л</B> is often written as a triangle with no bottom by my Russian TA when he prints, probably because it's simply easier to write it that way.

[belacane.livejournal.com]

i believe one is block text and one is cursive.

Re:

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

I suppose that makes sense, thank you. But do Russian students always have to turn in works in cursive? I'm from the "США" and in fifth grade we had to learn cursive, but from then on we could choose between turning in rough drafts in cursive, print, or typing them.

Re:

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

Thank you for for the answer, and the great link!

offtopic

[yers.livejournal.com]

Not trying to imply anything about Russians
The founder of antiamerican is Ukrainian.

[(Anonymous)]

Curiously enough, this triangle-shaped "Л" is more genuine in respect to history, as far as this letter is a direct descendant of the Greek lamda "Λ".

Re: offtopic

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

And the location is listed as Prague!

Re:

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

You have a point there, I never thought of that.

[togie.livejournal.com]

write the letter g
now write it again
now write it with a little loop
curl it
twist it
it's all in the handwriting
the different styles (different fonts) all reflect the same letter
<3 Tolgia

Re:

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

Yes, I understand this concept very well, however I still think that it's useful for learners. Many 'Teach Yourself' books, and even formal class settings, don't want to 'bog you down' with details like this, however they are extremely important to actual communication.

[bugtilaheh.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I ever mentioned this, but Russians almost always write in cursive and not print (hence the weird changes you see in the font), as opposed to Americans. Well, I don't write in cursive, but some do.

Re:

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've noticed that Americans rarely write in cursive. I, personally, have horrible cursive hand writing, have forgotten how to form a number of the letters (especially in capital form) and often have trouble reading cursive. We learned it in third grade and for the rest of the year every final draft had to be hand written in cursive, except for a few reports and informal assignments like spelling quizzes and book reports. After third grade, we've always gotten to choose how to write. Some people got better and better at cursive, but most people that I know rarely if ever use it.

[bugtilaheh.livejournal.com]

That sounds exactly like me to a T, but I haven't really forgotten how to write in cursive; I just can't write in it as quickly as I can in print.

[bras.livejournal.com]

russians write in cursive rather often
although personally i always write in some mixture of cursive and type characters (closer to the latter)
i suppose to a different degree this is the case for most russians (leaning towards handwritten characters, though)