Authors: 1Dr. Dotsey Nelson Monday & 2Dr. David Ackah,PhD.
1Head of Research Development & 2President/Executive Director,
Institute of Project Management Professionals – IPMP
Email: drdavidavidackah@gmail.com & nelsonmonday@gmail.com
INTRODUCTION
The handwriting of any literate is as indispensable as the writer himself. The school children are often the first class of people to be engaged with writing exercises. They are usually taken through it with Beginner Lessons of ‘scribbling’, ‘stroking’, ‘curving’, etc. at their early stage in the Pre-School lessons. This tradition which has been known for centuries is gradually fading away into oblivion with the advent of computer printing and other scientific innovations which are being designed to suit written communication and of cause replace and terminate the handwriting culture. This electronic means of printing (writing) is however not in any way a progression on the child’s cognitive performance in the aspect of writing; rather it is a steep regression.
The child’s brain cortex where activity is reinforced through the writing process now becomes redundant or less active as a result of disconnect between the brain faculty and the conscious activity of the hand which is no longer at the moment engaged in drawing of the various shapes of the writing symbols. Now the computer keys occupy the position of the work which ought to have been carried out by both the hand and the brain in the writing-exercise. In developing countries in Africa for example, many elementary schools have found the modern devices as an object of excuse for not adopting the traditional writing in their school curriculum.’ We are in a modern age’ they say. So everybody wants to keep pace with what is in vogue. Considering the origin of handwriting, its evolutionary continuum, and the expositions of the relentless research work going on around the globe, experts have been able to deduce the inevitableness of the act of writing which is nearly being wrenched out of the bare hands of the promising child. These assertions may prompt us to ask some questions:
What is the origin of handwriting?
How did it develop to the level it has today? What scientific effect has the act of handwriting on the child that its discourse becomes so paramount? What is the adverse effect of the use of computer key boards in place of the handwriting on the child? How can teachers and parents rescue the children from this dilemma?
What is the origin of handwriting? Handwriting had begun in ancient civilization. The appropriate means for storing information order than the predominant verbal communication transcended simple drawings to a standardized system known as Pictograph, setting the pace for modern handwriting dating back to cultures like: the Sumerian, the Egyptian and the Kanji Chinese which were predominantly notable for the writing systems such as cuneiform that was developed around 3000 BC, hieroglyphs around 2800 BC and the Precursor around 1800 BC respectively. These innovations did not die with their inventors at their demise. A lot of improvements have taken place over the centuries and decades.
The evolution of handwriting continued from one form of writing to another. The Sumerian Cuneiform, which means wedge-shaped (in Latin), evolved into Ideographs, where a sign represented an idea. The Egyptian hieroglyphs developed to syllabic system. After the hieroglyphs, came the two cursive scripts, the hieratic (among the religious group) and demotic scripts (among other people) around 1500 BC and 500 BC. Later the Alphabet which at that time consisted of 22 vowels-less letters was developed by the Phoenicians. The Greeks eventually improved upon the arrangement of the Phoenicians alphabet by adding vowels to it and dropping some consonants. In the eighth century, the Capital Greek letter was developed whilst the lower case letter came up in the middle age. The trend continued until around 400 AD, the era of Celtic writing style otherwise known as the uncials in which letters were written within 1–inch square guides.
This was immensely adopted by the Christians at the period in copying and distribution of the Bible. The Greek alphabet became prominent as it was employed by the Romans in developing Latin writing by the fourth century AD. The Gothic writing (also known as black letter script), which evolved from Carolingian minuscule was later developed and gained dominance over others from 1200 AD until 16 00 AD. Through this, the cursive form of writing, known as Cursive Humanistic, sprang up and was used throughout Europe. At this age, writing surface has moved from the Romans invention surfaces of stone tablet, clay, metal and papyrus to copy books. The development of Chinese and the Japanese writing systems were noticeable in East Asia. The Japanese writing developed from the Chinese characters and Chinese script called Kanji. In the nineteenth century, Penmanship which used to be taught earlier by the master penmen to adults as professional skills had been inculcated into the curriculum in American schools.
Keywords: Handwriting, Writing Skills, Words Writing
