Spanish Handwriting Clarified

Here are some examples of handwriting mostly from Latin-American nations. They can be beneficial to those who are working with exotic Hispanic handwriting. This will show an actual example, followed by what clarifies that name or word. Most of these examples are first letter puzzles. Most of these examples won't show letters that are easily recognizable to current cursive readers.

Here are examples of the letters A, E, O, and U Notice how often capital A looks like an O with a small tail to the lower right? And, the A in Angela, Alino and Arébalo (line 2) aren't even closed at the top. How about that fancy A in Angel with a loop in its left side?



Here is the letter D. The handwritten Hispanic lower-case 'd' very often has a very short stem...But, look at how the 'd' looks in line 3, like an o with a separated stem Eduardo is like: E ol uar olo  and Fernandez is like Fernan ol ez, that really is a 'd', not 'ol'   also, see how the 'd' sometimes wraps its stem off to the upper-left as in da Manuela in the first line.



Here are the letters M and N. Note that sometimes they crossed the capital M like we cross a 't' (see Merida crossed in 4th line and Juliana Morada, 6th line) See also the last entry of 4th line, de Manl. That "de" (of) features a really, really short-stemmed 'd'...abbreviated 'de Manuel' The handwritten Hispanic lower-case 'd' very often has a very short stem.

Now see the letters F, T, and t. Note that both T and F are often crossed in Hispanic handwriting, the difference is that the F will have a tail, perhaps an almost inconspicuous tail on the right end of the crossbar. Often, the lower-case 't' is very short, as though it's trying to hide itself!



Here are the letters G and J.

Here are the letters B, V, P, R, and r. Just look at the crazy letter 'P' in Paredes and Peralta, in line 2! Notice how, at times, the bottom loop of 'B' drops below and right as in Bernascon and Balcazar in line 6. Notice the 'P' in Padilla, line 3! How about the letter 'V' as in Varelas, line 2, and look at 'R' in "Andres Rojas", line 2. See "Juan Bautista", Bargas, Baca and Bernardo in lines 3,4,5. Now, for the lower-case 'r' see Urbina, line3, Contreras, line 5 (see the very short, squatty, t and the r's that look like x).



Here are the letters H, L, S, s, Z and z. Especially notice the strange beginning 'L', Luisa in line 3, 'Z', Zamudio in line 4 and the very strange descending loop 'L's Luna and Lopez in line 5. Line 6 has a wild 'R' in Lucia Rosas, the a very loopy 'L' in Luisa, notice that strange 'p', third letter in Zapata.

The Letters Y and I Notice that capital I and Y are very nearly the same. 'Y' may dip down a little lower than 'I'. Now look at the ancient script in line 2. See that 'de' (of), you'll see it a lot in the ancient Hispanic script - it has almost no ascender (stem). Paper and ink were expensive back 250 years ago, so, abbreviations were liberally used, that Yg.a is abbreviation for Ygnacia (Ignacia). And, isn't that 'Rojas' strange to us?

There's more coming, this is a work in progress