Good old German Letters - Oh Yes, There exists a Option to Undererstand the Words.

Looking to research your ancestry and family history from the ancient land? Well, if any former family members hailed from Germany before 1941, it's possible you'll encounter written documents or reports written in Old German Handwriting.



This may present a real problem for you given that nowadays, even most aged Germans are not likely to be unable to read this style of handwriting. To those not out of Germany of yore or even for young Germans, Old German Handwriting is indeed completely different from the German authored today that any one looking at it might not be able to tell it as well as hieroglyphics.



A lot of people might realize another name that your style of cursive handwriting is named - altdeutsche Schrift. Altdeutsche Schrift (which means old german Writing) is the previous type of this unique backletter (meaning “broken”) handwriting that is used in Germany. It came from the 16th century and changed the Gothic letters that printers had been using during the time.



The particular Prussian Ministry of Culture commissioned typo designer Ludwig Sütterlin to have a contemporary handwriting script in 1911 and it was this kind of cursive style he invented, which finally replaced various other, older texts. Today, anybody refer to Sütterlin handwriting scripts, they may often be making reference to some of the older handwriting styles.



In the year 1941, Germany blacklisted all backletter typefaces simply because of the false impression that they were Jewish. However, way up through the post-war period, quite a few Germans still chosen this handwriting type. Even throughout the 1970s, Sütterlin had been tutored to German schoolchildren, eventhough it was not the primary type of cursive tutored.



The script itself is rather beautiful and chic. For example, the Sütterlin lower case “e” appears like two slanted bars. Although visually appealing, reading through it can end up confusing, since some of the letters actually seem to appear to be totally different letters. One fascinating thing within the letters by themselves is that they can and have been used on blackboards for mathematical uses, because the letters are so unique.



Even for a German-speaking people,the translation of Old German Handwriting is practically impossible since there is a real radical significant difference in the types of all the letters. Beautiful, yes. Easy to read, no. Thankfully, there can be people that are familiar with this form of handwriting and may have old documents or ancestral papers quickly translated.



Those who are seeking their family trees as well as looking to translate old letters, documents, or records that are composed in Old German handwriting, the company Metascriptum is there to support. They offer translation as well as transcription services that can take everything you have and easily put it back into English. When you encountered German handwriting that appears very old and doesn't look like current German, most likely it happens to be Sütterlin, and Metascriptum may help.



You can find more informations to transcribe old German handwritings on the following site :


Suetterlinschrift uebersetzen