If it wasn't for the signature and the adornment, the pen would be extinct

Since the emergence of the typewriter, and then the computer keyboard, and then the “laptop”, and the phone connected to the Internet all the time, many have written, and exaggeratedly, about the “death of the pen”, which we no longer really need except to sign a piece of paper, or when recording Notes on the home refrigerator. And this has already happened, as we can write anything, even if a note we remember or a date for the coming weeks, or any idea that comes to our mind. What idea are you thinking about now?” The advanced communication technology companies tried to restore the glory of the pen by using it electronically in modern devices, although this idea and the industry did not spread widely, and came back and disappeared little by little.

It is as if those who are accustomed to the keyboard and click it with their fingers have forgotten how to use the pen, and there are many who say that they feel as if they no longer know how to use the pen, so their handwriting appears as if it is a “scribble” as if they have lost the craft of writing letters and it appears tilted and skewed in writing on a white paper without lines .

Is the pen really dead?

Many say that when they need a pen to sign a receipt or for any simple work, they can't find a pen in the bag, not even around the house. The pen is like many tools that have disappeared since we began to teach our devices everything we want to write, but does this mean his death for good, despite the fact that luxury pen companies publish their advertisements about their expensive pens, which look more like a decoration and an accessory for the holder than a pen for use, after they Hanging the luxurious pen in the front pocket of the formal suit was evidence that its holder is a literate person, or a writer, or interested in writing matters, in addition to being acquainted with the precious pen. However, today it has become almost a mere adornment that complements all other appearances, as is the case with a luxury wristwatch, so its owner no longer needs it to know The time on his phone and in his electronic device, but the watch is no longer just a tool that indicates time, but a tool for distinction and to appear in a different appearance as well, as well as the luxurious pen.

So where is the pen in light of the many writing methods?

First, it must be remembered that writing by hand with any type of instrument is one of the most ancient human skills, and one of the pillars of civilizations for more than five thousand years.

Researcher and writer Maha Qamar Al-Din in the Saudi "Caravan" magazine, in her research on the history of handwriting, wrote: "Since writing began in Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium BC, it has undergone many technical changes, and the tools and media used in it varied, from nails and clay. In the Sumerian tablets in Mesopotamia, to drawing in pharaonic hieroglyphs, then the Phoenician alphabet that appeared in the first millennium BC, and from the invention of paper in China about 1,000 years later, to the first handwritten volume whose papers were packed and collected together to form one book, up to To the invention of printing in the 15th century, and the emergence of ballpoint pens in the 1940s.”

According to Qamar al-Din's conclusion, we can say that the battle that exists today between the digital keyboard and pens is nothing more than a development in a long story, in which digital panels are another new tool, which we will end up getting used to and adopting permanently. This deals with the same social media that many reject because of its damage to their personal lives and their children, and which many researchers say we will get used to as we used to on radio and television after their appearance and considering them as satanic tools that destroy the family at the time.

But Qamar al-Din’s most important conclusions about writing with a pen, and in her opinion, that handwriting has its own language that reflects the writer’s personality, behavior and temperament, and is similar to the fingerprint of each individual, hence the interest in studying handwriting, or the so-called “interpretation of the line”, which is concerned with analyzing the handwriting The hand and the method of writing letters, and this analysis was used in deciphering many crimes, as well as in legal cases whose owners do not acknowledge that they wrote the contract or the specific letter or signed a paper, so the science of approaching and comparing fonts came to solve these thorny problems, because handwriting is like a fingerprint, unique Especially its owner.

Signs of writing with a pen and calligraphy

The personal signature is an essential issue in handwriting, as Eileen Ness, a specialist in handwriting analysis, believes that the signature reflects the communication skills of individuals. Signature wishes to hide his identity.

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In the same context, recent studies in the fields of science, technology and educational psychology have concluded that the traditional method of handwriting significantly helps to remember information, and contributes to raising children’s IQ better than using a computer board, and this was confirmed by the results of A study by scientists from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology conducted by scientists from the Norwegian University of Science and published in October 2020 in the journal Frontiers in Psychology and in its research on educational psychology related to the effect of handwriting on the brains Children, Dr. Hoda Sabah found that it activates brain functions and helps handwriting develop fine motor skills, develop functional brain skills, and helps to understand and comprehend things more.

The researchers stressed the importance of handwriting as a preparatory step for children's learning, as it is one of the important factors in developing several skills, including: alerting, focusing, stimulating memory, organizing ideas systematically, as well as stimulating mental centers, and developing children's cognitive abilities.

writing tools

In the beginning, writing tools were sharp iron or wooden pieces resembling nails, from which the name of cuneiform writing was given on clay tablets in Mesopotamia. The ancient Egyptians used reed writing on papyrus in Pharaonic Egypt, and cuneiform writing remained widespread until the end of the first century AD. It first appeared among the Sumerians, and then was adopted by the Babylonians and Assyrians, in the Pharaonic temples. Writing with the sharp wooden pen developed from photography to writing written symbols, but the engraving with the nail pen remained adopted, and among the most famous texts written in the cuneiform pen, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the law of Hammurabi, the Babylonian king (1728). - 1686 BC), which includes civil law, personal status law, and penal code.

The researcher and writer Faisal Ya`id bin Salman referred to the pens used by Arab writers, philosophers and poets, which varied into 12 types. Including: "The Galilee Pen", which first appeared in the late Umayyad era, and the beginning of the Abbasid state, and was used to write in mihrabs, on the doors of mosques and on the walls of palaces, and so on.

Among these pens are the "Tomar", and it was intended for the caliphs to sign correspondence and correspondence with the sultans and senior countries, including the "Mukhtasar al-Tomar" pen, and "Two-thirds of the Tomar", and it was for writing the dependence of ministers on decrees, and writing preserved records. The two-thirds pen was to write the caliphs to the workers, governors and princes. Among the pens are the small round pen, which is for writing notebooks and transmitting hadith and poetry, the vows pen, which is for writing vows and pledges, and the rink dust pen, which is for writing carrier pigeon cards. The Greeks and Romans inherited from the Egyptians writing on papyrus, but they also used leather, and the pointed and scissored metal rod with which the Romans wrote was called “stylus”, and from it the French took their name for the modern ink pen: “stylo”.

In Europe, after the era of the Romans, and benefiting from the advanced Arab and Islamic sciences, especially through contact with the Andalusian civilization, writing began to spread in the Middle Ages, so the English called the pen “pencil” which means: the small sin, because the pen was a stick at the end of the bristles of The camel's hair is a feather for writing, and from it the drawing feather that we know today evolved.

There are many global initiatives around handwriting, including the International Day of Arabic Calligraphy and the International Day of the Pen, and there are many organizations and associations around the world that can be summed up in the Friends of the Pen, which may indicate the importance of returning to the pen for writing, but at the same time it may indicate an intellectual and written cultural work. Several initiatives have emerged to revive handwriting, the most prominent of which may be the appointment of an International Handwriting Day on January 23 of each year.