Recently, podcaster and Ultimate Fighting aficionado, Joe Rogan, had on an expert guest in ancient and biblical languages (Wes Huff).
During the episode (which you can find here, but we have to give a language warning), both men spoke of how languages decline and even disappear. Rogan even compared it to what we’re currently seeing with cursive writing.
He says, “…we’ve kind of abandoned cursive. So, if people in the future go to read ancient scripts of human beings that lived in the 20th Century, they’ll be like, ‘What is this…'”
Think about it.
Our grandchildren, trying to read those immigration docs of their ancestors, which are both recorded and signed in cursive. But instead of easily seeing the port and country of origin? They’re looking at it like an archaeologist staring at a wall of fascinating hieroglyphics.
He says, “We all learned cursive as children. It was the way you could write things quicker. And then, once printing, and typewriters, and computers became ubiquitous; it’s like [cursive is] gone.”
We (mostly) agree. While technology did cause less of a need for cursive, it’s not really what caused half of a generation to not know how to read (let alone write) cursive. That title belongs to Common Core.
Over a few years, starting in 2010, these suggested education standards made their rounds — and the number of states requiring cursive dwindled to 14 of 50.
Thankfully, many state legislatures are reconsidering. At the end of 2024, there are now 24 states requiring it (as we’ve kept a close eye on it, here). There are also several states with recent and/or potential legislation on the books (Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Maine, and Iowa).
He said, “No websites are written in cursive, or very few, at least.”
If you count social media, and many sites dedicated to handwriting, calligraphy, and other letter arts, we’d say that cursive’s corner of the internet is getting bigger!
Just last year, MyCursive.com had nearly half a million visitors from every country on the planet. While we’re not completely out of danger, in terms of cursive being forgotten, cursive seems to be getting stronger over the past few years.
