The "My" problem of handwriting by Dino Kaka, September 2013 In my personal experience, it is EASY to learn writing and reading PRINTED BANGLA CHARACTERS like those of any physical or virtual keyboard e.g. Avro http://www.omicronlab.com/ By the way, I used successfully Easy Learn Bangla software for learning. http://www.easylearnbangla.com/ So I can read , and I can "type" , using the keyboard. When I try to write BY HAND, I can only reproduce more or less accurately that kind of PRINTED characters:
Transcript
The "My" problem of handwriting by Dino Kaka, September 2013
In my personal experience, it is EASY to learn writing and reading
PRINTED BANGLA CHARACTERS like those of any physical or virtual keyboard e.g. Avro
http://www.omicronlab.com/
By the way, I used successfully Easy Learn Bangla software for learning.
http://www.easylearnbangla.com/
So I can read , and I can "type" , using the keyboard.
When I try to write BY HAND, I can only reproduce more or less accurately that kind of PRINTED characters:
In my personal experience, it is extremely DIFFICULT to learn reading BANGLA HANDWRITING!
In the reality, no educated adult Bangladeshee would ever write by hand a personal letter this way:
, , ণ
Keyboard My own handwriting
He/she would write instead in a way like this:
Handwiting by Parvez, a Bangladeshee friend of mine who studied in Europe
Can you remark any difference?
A theoretical approach A huge "Handwritten Database" is downloadable from the Internet, and gives an idea of the variability of both basic and compound characters, for example: http://www.isical.ac.in/~ujjwal/
Dha
Ma
Pha
Kka
Ka_tta
Ma_bha
Such a "database" is very interesting from a theoretical point of view, but any attempt to "decipher" each handwritten word character-by-character is a very frustrating experience. Actually, there is no chance for me! By the way, databases of written words are used in trials to develop a system for computerized character recognition, that seems to be a very hard job: http://www.cenparmi.concordia.ca/ICFHR2008/Proceedings/papers/cr1079.pdf http://www.icfhr2012.uniba.it/paper120.pdf http://eprints.qut.edu.au/33182/1/33182.pdf
What I cannot understand Of course even Roman alphabet has major differences between printed characters and handwritten cursive. Nevertheless children learn cursive at school. So individual differences in any adult's calligraphy are, in my opinion, more predictable. It is a fact that for Roman even typographical cursive "fonts" are largely available.
On the site of the National Curriculum & Textbook Board - Bangladesh (Textbooks for the Academic Year 2013) I found no reference to handwriting for Bangla. http://www.nctb.gov.bd/downloadpage22.php
Children reading Class 1 learn to write for example ল in the way that is familiar to me
I cannot understand "how" Bangladeshee children learn to write the many possible variants of cursive script, with and without matra, and I would highly appreciate any possible reference.
William Radice, Complete Bengali, ISBN 978-0-07-176703-3 www.teachyourself.com This is the only textbook I know that shows for each character an example of (possible) handwriting. Nevertheless, referring to the following "diary", there is no statement about for example the use of matra in a case like [ ] or [ ].
The matra is apparently resolved as a continuous sinusoidal line in a word like
Unfortunately, in Radice's textbook, the only examples of whole handwritten words are in the "page of a diary" as above, and in my opinion such a handwriting should be considered just as a variant of block letters similar to the printed ones.
Practical difficulty
I suppose that any public notary takes care in handwriting more clearly than my friend
Parvez.
Nevertheless, in the following example from a governmental form, I can read " ",
but the same officer, at the same moment, wrote " " properly (i.e. as "printed"
"triangular" character) in the first line, whereas in the second line " " becomes a dotted
"circle".
No major problem of mine with " ", but " " in is for me an absolutely
mysterious scribble, because the right half of is totally missing!
In this form, one can also note the particular shape of the printed in , for the joy of any bideshee like me!
Conclusion Whatever the photographic contrast, I suppose that any Bangladeshee can read on this whiteboard, but I need an interpreter!
ও ১ ২
Relationship between printed characters and handwriting is for me a riddle! At most when the matra is sistematically omitted. My question is: how does any Bangladeshee adult develop his own handwriting, if at school nobody teaches for any common "rule"?
One should be able to learn (soon or later) to speak and write Bangla, thanks to modern multimedia courses. I cannot exclude that it is also possible to study Bangla language on the books for being able to read a newspaper or even "All Poems of Rabindranath Tagore", but I should exclude till now that there is any "course" available to learn how to read... one of his handwritten letters!
