VARIABILITY IN HANDWRITING PATTERNS AMONG ETHNIC GROUPS OF INDIA

Writing is a complex act and highly developed skill. Variation in handwriting is the foremost principle of handwriting analysis. This paper presents an offline handwriting analysis method for English characters to see the variation in different Ethnic groups of India. Important features of handwriting were obtained and classified into Macro and micro features. These features were used to establish the discriminating power of handwriting for different Ethnic groups. In addition to this changes in handwriting patterns were also observed with respect to different factors like age, gender and education level etc. This approach provides impetus for identifying ethnicity with the help of handwriting features and assists in Forensic document examination.