Forensic Examination of Multilingual Documents

Abstract

In forensic document examination, handwriting examination plays a key role, especially in the case of disputed documents. With multilingual population all across the globe, forensic experts are often challenged to examine and establish authorship in documents with multiple scripts. The main aim of the research is to determine if class and individual handwriting characteristics are sustained or altered whrn the same individual writes in two different scripts. Handwriting samples collected from individuals who are proficient in Hindi-English and English- German scripts are analysed in this research to compare handwriting characteriastics in multiple scripts within a multilingual context. For the study, 50 individuals provided handwriting samples in Hindi and English script, and 50 individuals provided samples in English and German script. The total 200 handwriting samples were collected from the bilinguals belonging to the age group of 18-55 years. Handwriting samples were analyzed manually for individual characteristics and class characteristics. Chi square test was applied to perform the statistical analysis, ensuring the accuracy and replicability of the results. The findings suggest that there are certain handwriting traits whoch remain stable across different scripts. The results also show that due to changes in letter formation, some individual traits may vary to a certain extent although some class properties remain the same. The research highlights the significance of inter-script comparison in forensic science casework, this research contributes to the growing field of forensic handwriting examination.