A method for recognition of a handwritten pattern comprises selecting core points among a sequence of detected points of the handwritten pattern. The core points are selected for use in segmenting and recognizing the handwritten pattern. The method may further comprise identifying potential diacritics in the sequence of points of the handwritten pattern, determining features of each core point, assigning at least one feature associated with identified potential diacritics to each core point of a subset of core points, and comparing the handwritten pattern to templates.