Introduction
What is 'Old German Script?'
Katherine Schober, author of 'Tips and Tricks of Deciphering German Handwriting' and 'The Magic of German Church Records: Finding the Key to Your Ancestor's Past', is a German-English genealogy translator who has translated for both The History Channel and PBS' Finding Your Roots. She works with the old German script in letters, diaries. We have 85 free old german fonts to offer for direct downloading 1001 Fonts is your favorite site for free fonts since 2001. The vocabulary contains 1258 meaning-word pairs ('entries') corresponding to core LWT meanings from the recipient language Old High German. The corresponding text chapter was published in the book Loanwords in the World's Languages. The language page Old High German contains a list of all loanwords arranged by donor languoid. Handwriting Guide: German Gothic PURPOSE Reading old German records requires a knowledge of basic German genealogical terms and familiarity with German handwriting. Difficulty in reading a record may not result from a record keeper’s poor penmanship but rather the use of a different style of handwriting. As most early German documents. We have 85 free old german fonts to offer for direct downloading 1001 Fonts is your favorite site for free fonts since 2001.
The term Old German Script, as used throughout this tutorial, refers to the typefaces and handwriting styles of German-speaking countries during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. Although these scripts are based on the Latin alphabet, many of the individual letters may appear to the untrained eye as unique as the letters of the Russian or Arabic alphabets. Old German Script was used widely until the end of World War II, when Latin forms became the accepted standard for handwriting and printing. Nowadays very few German speakers can read or write Old German Script.
Gothic Handwriting vs. Gothic Typefaces (Fraktur)
Centuries ago, German scribes developed forms of handwriting and typesetting that were very different from other parts of central and Western Europe. These forms came to be known as Gothic Style or Gothic Script. The term Gothic does not hearken back to Gothic arcitecture or even the ancient Gothic tribes; it was derisively applied to denote inferiority.
It is important to note that there were several different styles of Gothic handwriting and typefaces, including some regional variants. Eventually all the Gothic typefaces came to be called after one of the variants, Fraktur. In this tutorial we will also refer to the Gothic typefaces as Fraktur. The handwriting styles also went by several names, usually based on the name of a variant: Kurrent or Sütterlin, for example. Most Gothic handwriting is harder to decipher nowadays than Gothic typefaces, which more closely resemble Latin text.
| Latin Text | Gothic Typeface (Fraktur) | Gothic Handwriting |
Old German Text Font
The materials and exercises of the German Script Tutorial cover both Gothic handwriting and typefaces, although more attention will be given to handwriting. Most German documents from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were originally handwritten, and reading them is a challenge for modern scholars and researchers. Our goal in this tutorial is to help you overcome this challenge.
Old German Text Font
The key to reading Old German Script is developing the ability to write it yourself. By the time you finish these learning exercises, you will be able to write words, sentences, and phrases in Gothic style. You will also be able to read words and passages in Fraktur. These skills will make it easier for you to peruse old German literature and read old German documents.