Which western script for Asian (Chinese) readers?

[txomsy]

I'm planning a new project, a book I want to present to a Chinese friend. Now, this has got me wondering, which western script is the most easily readable / best looking to Chinese readers?

 

I think I have a feeling for what western readers would consider a nice handwritten script, or at least readable, but then I realized that for Chinese or other Asian people who have not grown up writing and reading in Western hands, some hands may actually turn pretty difficult to read and others a lot easier (or look nicer), and these need not match at all what native Western writers appreciate.

 

So, if you are Chinese (or Japanese, Indian, Arab, whatever, non Western native), which Western script is easier on you and which looks nicer for you? Which ones are worse, more difficult, ugliest?

 

Thanks in advance to you all for any help you can provide and any hints you can shed.

[A Smug Dill]

Pick something that isn't visually cursive. Unlike serifs, connectors between letters do not aid pattern recognition, but are an artefact of writing cursively and/or considered aesthetically pleasing by some as a form of flourishing.

 

If you look at some heavily flourished English script and think to yourself, “Gee, that looks absolutely beautiful, but it takes me thrice as long to read it and get the actual content of the text,” that's probably how someone, whose native language does not employ a Latin-based alphabet in its written form, feels when reading cursive English writing.

[A Northerner]

On 1/27/2021 at 8:37 PM, A Smug Dill said:

Pick something that isn't visually cursive. Unlike serifs, connectors between letters do not aid pattern recognition, but are an artefact of writing cursively and/or considered aesthetically pleasing by some as a form of flourishing.

 

If you look at some heavily flourished English script and think to yourself, “Gee, that looks absolutely beautiful, but it takes me thrice as long to read it and get the actual content of the text,” that's probably how someone, whose native language does not employ a Latin-based alphabet in its written form, feels when reading cursive English writing.

Interesting. I thought that English was taught in East Asia using the cursive script, I know Japan used to at least.

[Mech-for-i]

Cursive as in modern cursive is OK, not those turn of the century , or Victorian style. The really mattered is the slant , Asian language typically write with no slant , even in their own cursive form, so heavily slanted writing tend to go against their reading norm. The classic Post Renaissance / Enlightenment era Copperplate is bordering too much already though its good form do aid reading. Italic the classic script would do rather well and any of the variant derived from that , eg, early English Coppeerplate Hand ( which are far less pronounce in its slant and flourishing than the later ones )

 

I say something like early 20th Century Business Hand , or Library Hand would work best. I've read that Edwardnian hand would do too but I had no experience of such so can only pass on the info

[txomsy]

Thanks for the advice. I'll do my best to heed it.