Decipher Gothic script online
Letters, diaries, parish registers and recipes in Gothic handwriting are slipping into oblivion, because the script hasn't been taught in Danish schools since around 1875. Upload a photo and get the text back in just minutes.
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What is Gothic script?
Gothic script – also called Gothic handwriting or Kurrent – was the everyday writing script in Denmark until around 1875. Everything from parish registers and censuses to private letters, diaries and recipe books was written in it. When the school reforms of the late 19th century gradually introduced the Latin script we use today, the ability to read Gothic script was lost in just a couple of generations.
Why Gothic script is hard to read today
Gothic script has letterforms that are easily confused: an e that looks like an n, a long ſ that can be mistaken for an f, and letters that differ only by a small curve. On top of that comes the old orthography – before the 1948 reform people wrote »Aa« instead of »Å«, and all nouns were capitalised. With AI you can skip the learning curve and get the readable text right away.
From unreadable script to readable text in minutes
MormorsBreve is built for exactly this: upload a photo or scan and get the text in a form you can read, search, edit and save. You get three text versions – faithful to the original, AI-completed and freely interpreted. The text can be translated into 30+ languages, read aloud as audio and exported as PDF. The first 3 pages are free, so you can see the quality before you decide.
What you'll find — and what our AI can read
- Gothic handwriting – standard in Danish documents before ~1875
- Transitional script – Gothic and Latin around 1875–1900
- Gothic print (Fraktur) – the printed Gothic type
- Old orthography – »Aa« for »Å« before 1948
From old handwriting to readable text
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