How Handwriting Evolves: An Initial Quantitative Analysis of the Development of Indic Scripts

Abstract : Indic scripts are among few scripts in the world that have had continuous development for more than two millennia. The modern forms of the scripts are the result of infinitesimal changes in handwriting being accumulated over centuries. They present us with a unique opportunity to understand various changes occurring in handwriting behavior. We have taken four major Indic scripts in six different stages of evolution and extracted features quantifying their handwriting behavior. We have derived these features by applying the principles of handwriting production and gesture analysis on a paleographic data set. We present various trends and behaviors that occurred during script development and discuss our interpretation of the results in terms of evolution of handwriting behavior. We then briefly discuss the detailed analyses that will be performed on the dataset in the future. We also consider the applications of these results in digital paleography and handwriting-driven systems.