I had quite an interest in calligraphy when I was a teenager, and this interest has been passed on to our Dojogirl. I happened upon an interesting tutorial today when I was rounding up some foreign language resources, and while I think it’s probably a bit too soon for Dojogirl to be attempting this work I wanted to share it with you all. I’m sure somebody out there will be ready to put it to use!

Palæography is the study of ancient handwriting, and for anyone with an interest in either philology (essentially the study of classical languages) or calligraphy, it is an asset to have some experience in this field.

The British National Archives web site offers a free tutorial in palæography of English written between 1500-1800. There is an introduction that offers some hints about decrypting old texts, complete with some references for common abbreviations, currency, etc. What follows are ten interactive texts to be transcribed (and scored!) line by line. Once a student has completed these, she can try her hand at the ducking stool game (a sort of 17th century-palæography twist on hangman) or look at some of the texts recommended for further practice.

Enjoy the challenge!

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

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