The written word is one of the earliest cultural practices of mankind. Today, it is considered a form of communication and a technology for passing on and storing our knowledge. Writing systems were created independently all over the world. Palaeolithic wall paintings in caves and prhistoric notch marks and counting signs in various materials like wood, bones, or stones were the predecessors of the alphabetic writing as we know it today. The earliest founds date back to the history of mankind, from 30,000 to 25,000 BC.
Many typographic textbooks propounded the culture of writing, along with its origins and development, as one monogenetic line of dissemination. This is untrue because the latest insights point to the theory that there are actually multiple roots of writing spread all over the globe. There are traces in Southeast Europe around 5500 BC, Ancient Egypt (hieroglyphs) around 3500 BC, Mesopotamia (today’s Iraq) (Sumerian cuneiform scripts) around 2700 BC, the Indus Valley around 2300 BC, China around 1900 BC, and Central America around 1000 BC (Olmec script). All other writing cultures are influenced by one another.
Furthermore, alphabetic scripts like English, Greek, or Russian include capitalization.
Also, Korean has letter writing, even though the syllables are written in square blocks.
The consonantal alphabet as we find it in Hebrew or Arabic languages contains almost exclusively consonants. The reader has to add the vowels himself. For instance, if you want to write the Arabic name “Mohammad” the way arabic people do it, you would only write the arabic signs for “m,” “h,” “m,” and “d.”. Also, you have to take into account that you do not read from left to right but from right to left.
In ideographic scripts like the Chinese one, one sign describes one entire word, idea, or object.
Other than that, there is also the syllabic script, which is used in Japanese and Indian. There, every syllable gets its own sign and does not get separated into single letters.
In the Middle Ages, European monks started to write on parchment. Parchment was a very difficult material to write on, expensive, and time-intensive in its production. Monks who were very skilled in handwriting could only write a few pages a day because they valued clear and even results. The handwritten books could only be purchased by the wealthy. If someone owned a book, it was most definitely also a sign of prestige and wealth.
The writing culture got revolutionised when German Johannes Gutenberg invented letterpress printing. Actually, he wanted to invent something that came as close as possible to the writing of the monks. The fact that he used the Latin script for this was helpful since the letters are clearly separated from one another and, in any case, identical. He gained a lot of success with his invention and took the first step into a modern writing culture.
Nevertheless, having your own handwriting is also somehow an expression of your character. It is a unique attribute because no one has the exact same handwriting as you do, and you can even recognise someone by just seeing his or her handwriting. So, regardless of the many printed papers, books, and documents you have, your handwriting is something special.
Sources:
https://www.typolexikon.de/schriftgeschichte/
https://klexikon.zum.de/wiki/Schrift
https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/kulturpraxis/handschrift/