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From: albert@harvard.ARPA (David Albert)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish,net.nlang
Subject: Re: Writing from right to left
Message-ID: <369@harvard.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 8-Feb-85 12:18:36 EST
Article-I.D.: harvard.369
Posted: Fri Feb  8 12:18:36 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 11-Feb-85 06:56:07 EST
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Organization: Aiken Computation Laboratory, Harvard
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Xref: watmath net.religion.jewish:1421 net.nlang:2566


> Recently I've become interested in Hebrew. Unfortunately, I've never
> seen anyone write Hebrew characters, so my letters are quite ugly. Are
> there any general rules for drawing the script? Do you usually start
> at the upper left or the upper right of a letter? Take, for instance,
> the word \b're:shiyth\. Would most people write its strokes in the 
> order that I have guessed?

The letters you used were the "printing" letters as opposed to the
"handwriting" letters; the two alphabets are distinct, and, at least
in Israel, the printing alphabet is handwritten only by children in
the first grade, after which, with virtually no exceptions, everyone
uses the handwriting alphabet.

Although it is hard to formulate a general handwriting rule because
the letters are each so different, semicircular parts of the 
letters are generally drawn in a clockwise motion.  Thus, for instance,
the letter 'shin', which when handwritten looks very much like the
letter 'e', is written in the reverse manner from the way one usually
writes an 'e' in English.

-- 
"...sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things
before breakfast."

David Albert
ihnp4!ut-sally!harvard!albert (albert@harvard.ARPA)