Methods, systems, and devices, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for improving handwriting detection. In one aspect, a method includes receiving data indicating one or more strokes, determining one or more features of the one or more strokes, determining whether the one or more strokes likely represent a grapheme based at least on one or more of the features, selecting a particular recognition process for processing the data, from among (i) a multi-language recognition process which processes input strokes using multiple recognizers that are each trained to output, for a given set of input strokes, one or more graphemes that are associated with a particular language, and (ii) a single character, universal recognition process which processes input strokes using a universal recognizer that is trained to output, for a given set of input strokes, a single grapheme, and providing the data to the particular recognition process.