Handwriting as a means of Cultural Identity by Anup Kumar Kapoor in JFSCI - Juniper Publishers
The uniqueness of handwriting is based on the discriminating elements of writing which are the clear manifestations of writing habits. These writing habits are greatly influenced and shaped by the culture and environment of a writer as handwriting is an acquired skill and environment is the matrix from which this art is acquired and cultivated [1]. The development of handwriting is complex which in part is culture dependent, and culture differs with locales and undergoes constant changes. Handwriting is a fine motor skill and teachings of the motor preliminaries (such as regularity and neatness, the introduction of cultural biases such as slant, counter clockwise rotations, left to right transport, posture and grasp) of writing varies from culture to culture. It can also be defined as a culture-bound activity, where many aspects of a language are greatly influenced by the culture of an individual. Writing is a potent and conventional system of symbols, marks and signs that encodes the utterances of a language. Cultural differences in verbal expression lead to distinctive pattern of native languages. Cheng et al. [2] investigated the impact of native language writing system on English handwriting and found the uniqueness in English handwriting characteristics peculiar to the ethnic origin of the writers.
