Weiben Wang wrote:

> Just as a side note, I was once upon a time an
> exchange student in Goettingen, and was amused to find
> that Gymnasium students didn't recognize my "American"
> style cursive Z. An older German woman, fearing that I
> couldn't read her handwriting, also felt she had to
> explain that "that's how we wrote z's when I was in
> school." Well, that's how I was taught to write them
> too.

I suppose that woman learnt the old German current, which is based on
Blackletter. So it's no surprise at all that she had that Blackletter
3-shaped z. But it surprises me that modern currents have that 3-
shaped z even though they're obviously based on Antiqua, and I'm even
more surprised that it's also like that in the States, where
Blackletter haven't been so important like in Switzerland, a German
country (in part), with German traditionally printed in Blackletter.

What about that: US current handwriting is based on Antiqua except
for the z-letter which is based on Blackletter; Swiss current is
based on Antiqua except for z-letter and capital Z-letter which are
based on Blackletter.

But why?