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What is Sütterlin?
More precise the question should be "who is Sütterlin?" because Ludwig Sütterlin was the "inventor" of the name of writing and printing we nowadays call "Sütterlin". This quite common designation is somewhat misleading, what we call "Sütterlin" was only the standardization of several "German" manners of handwriting, which became a common standard in Germany in the 20ies and 30ies of the 20th century.
Sütterlin, a grafic artist by the way, did not create a completely new handwriting, but only collected the individual characteristics of handwritings from the 17th to the 19th century. Above all this meant an insistence on German cultural individuality with respect to its European neighbors, which explains its position as a mandatory part of the school curriculum in the 1930s.
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As mentioned above handwriting in newer times served as the basis of the Sütterlin manner of writing. Exspecially legal files, documents, excerpts from church records, letters, diaries and private notes contain this type of writing which is hard to decipher for modern day readers.
Along with this, many different spellings and dialects, depending on which region of Germany the writer came from, found their way into the written language. Only good knowledge of technical terms, regional characteristics, the historical context and practice make it possible to come close to the true contents of these works.
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