The phenomena you describe relate to the writing implement you're using. Stylus
on clay? Stylus on palm leaf? Flexible brush? Broad-edge pen? Flexible nib?
Pencil? Ballpoint? Felttip?
 --
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...

>
>From: Nicholas Bodley <nbodley@...>
>To: Qalam <qalam@yahoogroups.com>
>Sent: Thu, June 23, 2011 8:29:08 PM
>Subject: Script queries
>
> 
>I was wondering about writing systems with such elaborate characters as
>Tamil and Malayalam (perhaps not the best examples). Are those written
>cursively, such as in personal letters?
>
>=====
>
>As well, I wonder what script is best adapted to muscles involved in
>writing. I find, for instance, that it's far easier to write u's and w's
>than n's and m's. For me, it takes extra effort to make an upstroke in an
>[n], continue in a clockwise curve while keeping the stroke well above the
>writing line, before finishing with the final down stroke. Perhaps I'm
>simply lazy, not having practiced enough to strengthen muscles for those
>movements. (The zigzag strokes of Kurrent come to mind.)
>
>I've seen a few photos of cursive Hebrew graffiti, and that script looks
>really easy to write.
>
>My father, well educated in Tsarist Russia, wrote cursively in a clear
>hand. He had studied Latin and Greek concurrently (for seven years!), so
>he must not have been restricted to cursive Cyrillic. When he started to
>write a lot of English, his cursive n's and m's looked much like u's and
>w's, but he wrote straight overbars above them to remove ambiguity. I
>adopted that practice. Apparently, it is done in parts of southeastern
>Europe.
>
>Best regards,
>
>--
>Nicholas Bodley _.=|*|=._ Waltham, Mass.

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