Kurrent
Form of German-language handwriting
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kurrent (German: [kʊˈʁɛnt]), also known as Kurrentschrift ("cursive script"), deutsche Schrift ("German script"), and German cursive, is an old form of hand used for writing the German language, and during the 19th century also the Nordic languages. Evolving out of late medieval cursive writing, many individual letters acquired variant forms over the long history of its use into the first part of the 20th century.
| Kurrent | |
|---|---|
Alphabet in Kurrent script from about 1865. The next-to-last line shows the umlauts ⟨ä⟩, ⟨ö⟩, ⟨ü⟩, and the corresponding capital letters ⟨Ae⟩, ⟨Oe⟩, and ⟨Ue⟩; and the last line shows the ligatures ⟨ch⟩, ⟨ck⟩, ⟨th⟩, ⟨sch⟩, ⟨sz⟩ (⟨ß⟩), and ⟨st⟩. | |
| Script type | |
Period | – |
| Direction | Left-to-right  |
| Languages | German, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Latf (217), Latin (Fraktur variant) |
![](#/media/File:Tavola_Kurrentschrift"_kaushik_carlini.jpg)
Similarly to Antiqua and Fraktur, German writers used both cursive styles — Kurrent and "Latin" cursive — concomitantly: location, contents, and context of the text determined which script style to use, and it was accordingly normal to switch between the two within a sentence. For instance, a term in French or a French toponym would be written in "Latin" cursive, surrounded by Kurrent.[1]
Sütterlin is a modern script based on Kurrent that is characterized by simplified letters and vertical strokes. It was developed in 1911 and taught in all German schools as the primary script from 1915 until the beginning of January 1941, when it was replaced with deutsche Normalschrift ("normal German handwriting"), sometimes called "Latin writing".
Lettering examples
Manuscript by Wilhelm Busch (undated, late 19th century)
Example from a book published in 1905
Kurrent script used for text in a 1916 children's book
Signage on a municipal children's home (Städtisches Kinderheim) in Esslingen am Neckar in 2006
A handwritten restaurant order in Kurrent from the 1920s
Kurrent script from a 1903–14 primer on German, the 26 letters, ligatures, start of sample text
Kurrent script from a 1903–14 primer on German, the rest of the sample text
Final paragraph of a German contract from 1750 signed by George II, King of Great Britain and Elector of Hanover. It contains a mixture of Kurrent and 'Latin font' scripts.
Handwritten letter, 1792
