The Next Dead Language: Cursive

I am sure many reading this had, at some point in time, learned how to write in cursive. Most likely in elementary school, first learning the letters and then how to write your name, and for some people, writing a few assignments in cursive. However, in recent years it is slowly becoming less and less relevant, to the point where I know people my age who don’t know how to read or right in cursive. So why the sudden change? Why have schools slowly removed cursive from their curriculum and why should we care?

First, let’s look at the history, how did cursive start? According to Britanica “Though modern cursive is often associated with languages that use the Latin alphabet, including English, Spanish, and French, cursive writing existed long before the development of written English. For instance, hieratic script was a form of ancient Egyptian cursive used from about 2925 BCE to about 200 BCE. Caoshu, a cursive variant of Chinese script, developed during the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE).”

Around the 18^th century was when the technique “round hand” was introduced. Round hand is a calligraphy style that involves thick downstrokes and flowy decorative lines surrounding letters. This technique was developed in Britain, and is what the Declaration of Independence is written in.

One of the more popular methods of cursive writing is called the Palmer method. No not Arnold Palmer, Though close enough.

Developed by Austin Norman Palmer in the late 19^th century, this method quickly gained popularity in America, its birthplace, and became a standard in schools and businesses. Part of what made it so popular was that the technique relies on writing with your arm rather than moving your fingers for each brushstroke. Writing with your arm can help combat fatigue, as it requires less strength and dexterity from your hand, helping you to write faster and for longer.

The Zanner- Bloser method then was adapted in the 1950s. Although very similar to the Palmer method, this style had simpler lettering styles and is most like the standard lettering we have today.

Today, cursive is less of a necessity. With the rapid rise of technology, mostly everyone writes essays and articles on a computer rather than handwriting it. This makes sense as that was the exact purpose of cursive, faster writing. As we further develop this new standard for literacy, more and more teachers are replacing cursive studies for touch typing. According to The Education Week Organization, only 24 states require students to learn cursive writing last updated November 2024. According to the California Learning Resource Network “The Common Core State Standards Initiative, which was introduced in 2014, places a strong emphasis on math and reading skills, leading to cursive writing being pushed to the side.” This is not to say that math and reading aren’t important, reading is especially more important than ever.

There is a literary crisis happening in the U.S. today and has been steadily increasing. Published January 29, 2025, the National Assessment Governing Bored states that

“The 2024 results show that fewer than a third of students nationwide are working at the NAEP Proficient level in reading at both grades. Scoring at the NAEP Proficient level means consistently understanding written text and interpreting its meaning.

Around 40 percent of 4th graders are working below the NAEP Basic level in reading, the largest percentage since 2002. Fourth graders scoring below NAEP Basic likely cannot recognize a reason for a character's action implied in a story. About a third of 8th graders nationwide are failing to hit the NAEP Basic benchmark in reading — the largest percentage ever.”

Reading is often taken for granted. But Literacy is more than just reading. Being literate is about being able to read, being able to understand what your reading, and being able to write. You cannot write without being able to read and you cannot read without being able to write. You have to have both.

One reason we teach cursive is to better understand our history. Though it may seem mundane, it’s important to study things the way they were originally formatted. The majority of Americas national documents are written in cursive. In fact, the Smithsonian magazine published an article to help cultivate volunteers for the National Archives. So many people can’t read cursive, that the national archives actually need help translating historical documents dating as far back as 200 years ago, written in none other than cursive.

This goes to show how important cursive writing is. How can we preserve our own history if we can’t even read what our forefathers wrote for us. Learning cursive may seem boring for some, and unnecessary for others, but without this knowledge, our own history will forget. I cannot think of anything more truly terrifying than disregarding the documents that helped create our country as ineligible because of the failures of our own education system.

So, I encourage you, keep writing in cursive, It doesn’t matter where or how. Write your grocery lists in cursive, birthday cards, and diary entries. Without doing so, cursive writing will have the same fate as Latin. A dead language no one seems to pay any mind to.