When I was studying German at U.C. Berkeley, some of my fellow grad students said that reading Fraktur gave them a headache, but I've always enjoyed it. I recently picked up a pre-war Fraktur edition of Erich Kästner's
Das fliegende Klassenzimmer at a library book sale and look forward to reading it.
I can read Kurrent and Sütterlin well enough (if a bit slowly) when they're neatly written, but poor handwriting can definitely stump me. It can also be a challenge when lines of script are written perpendicularly over other lines of script, as on this postcard:
With a little head scratching, I was able to figure out the text:
Quote:
Meine liebe Lotte!
Meinen herzlichen Glückwunsch
zu deinem Wiegenfeste sende
ich dir, in der Hoffnung daß du
das kommende Lebensjahr glücklich
und vergnügt verleben mögest
und daß alle deine Wünsche
in Erfüllung gehen. Doch die
Karte ist leider nicht groß genug,
um alles daßjenige [sic] darauf zu
schreiben was ich dir noch wünschen möchte.
verbleibe daher mit vielen
Grüßen deine dich liebende Freundin
L. Lippert
What's absolutely impenetrable to me, though, is shorthand, of whatever variety, in whatever language. Can anybody here decipher the Gabelsberger-Kurzschrift in the top half of this card?
Posted 05/08/2016 10:10 am
