Francesca Samuel (asker) Jun 14, 2011:

It is not a scan. It is a handwritten certificate. You are correct. It is an error. A typo.

Agnes T-H Jun 14, 2011:

The asker does not even answer, so arguing endlessly goes down to losing our time. Since I have been trying to twist my French handwriting in all directions and never got to make a "nar" and some of you are sure it is 1er. We should maybe agree that we disagree since it seems that either Francesca has found the solution elsewhere or lost interest.....
"La guerre cessa faute de combattants" disait Corneille....

Katarina Peters Jun 13, 2011:

nar = 1er You got it, Tony!

Tony M Jun 13, 2011:

French 1er Many French people write '1' with a long 'hook', so it looks more like this /l — even sometimes with an upwards curl at the start; hence the easy confusion with 'N'; and the 'er' of the abbreviation for 'premier' could easily be misread as 'ar'

Agnes T-H Jun 12, 2011:

I just wish Francesca could say something about it, because quite frankly I grew up in France, went to school and learn how to write there. I have been quizzing my poor husband (USA purebred) trying to write with my French handwriting, "1er"as bad as it is humanly possible, I did not manage to make him read "nar" one time. I'm curious to see how this "nar" looks for real...

Katarina Peters Jun 12, 2011:

nar
Sloppy handwriting, as Nils says...I've seen it before, and here there aren't any other guesses...this is the closest, imho.

Agnes T-H Jun 12, 2011:

Nar Katarina, maybe I don't get everything here but I don't see anywhere written that this is a PDF converted into Word.... Since the problem is hanwriting, it could be a fax too or the original of the diploma/certificate.... Where is it said that it is a PDF/Word?

Katarina Peters Jun 11, 2011:

nar Agnes, as I mentioned in my answer, it can only be "1er" (1st), as the "Acrobat" (PDF converter into Word) cannot "read" all the characters...

Agnes T-H Jun 11, 2011:

I fully agree with Ambrose March 1993 is OK to me but what is this "nar"? I don't know. The only numbers in 3 letters are Six and Dix (10) but neither of then are looking any close to nar.... Could you post it or send it by email if you need more help?

Francesca Samuel (asker) Jun 11, 2011:

It could be my error. I cannot decipher some of the handwriting. Thanks!!!

Ambrose Li Jun 11, 2011:

Is this a scan? Maybe you can post a picture of the actual handwriting (just this date, not the entire certificate).

“Mars mil neuf centquatre viugt treize” is “mars mil neuf cent quatre-vingt treize”, i.e., “March 1993”.

But “nars” is obviously an OCR error. This will be the day of the month, but in this form it’s impossible to see what this can be.