Zhuang Musicians in Longzhou. Source: Wikipedia Those of us from Western Europe and the Americas use a script that is so widely used we barely recognize it as a script. In fact, we often refer to it as “the” alphabet, as though there were only one. For us, our script is writing itself; most of … Continue reading #EndangeredAlphabets: The Songbook Scripts
#EndangeredAlphabets: Whatever You Do, Don’t Call It Picture-Writing
Papyrus painting. Photo by the author. Today this column ventures through not only space but time—to ancient Egypt, or more accurately to a papyrus painting in the style of Egyptian hieroglyphics, kindly given to me by the parents of a student graduating from my writing program, a decade ago. Like most people, I know … Continue reading #EndangeredAlphabets: Whatever You Do, Don’t Call It Picture-Writing
#EndangeredAlphabets: The Man Who Invented Everything
Photo courtesy of the Borneo Post Authors of writing systems need to be as creative as they are linguistically knowledgeable. A little self-promotion helps, and a lot of perseverance is vital. Of all the script creators we know about, though, nobody was as inventive as Dunging Anak (son of) Gunggu, known as "Aki," creator of … Continue reading #EndangeredAlphabets: The Man Who Invented Everything
#EndangeredAlphabets: Petros
The Baška tablet, found in the 19th century on Krk. Source: Wikipedia. Last September I was in the Balkans, specifically in Montenegro, looking for traces of the Glagolitic script created (probably) about 1200 years ago, (probably) a few hundred miles south of here, (quite likely not) by the brothers Cyril and Methodius who (probably) didn’t create Cyrillic … Continue reading #EndangeredAlphabets: Petros
#EndangeredAlphabets: When Alphabets Are Codes
A table of Buginese cypher script with equivalent in standard Buginese script cited by B F Matthes in his book "Eenige proeven van Boegineesche en Makassaarsche Poëzie", 1883. Source: Wikipedia In a sense, every script is a code, comprehensible to some, incomprehensible to those who don't know its workings. We tend to think that writing … Continue reading #EndangeredAlphabets: When Alphabets Are Codes
#EndangeredAlphabets: The Saddest Scripts
"Thank you all" written in the Nüshu syllabary. Photo and carving by the author. Over the past decade, my research for the Endangered Alphabets project has found scripts that are exclusively sacred or spiritual, others used only for magic and divination, some employed solely for accounting and bookkeeping, some even for notating songs. Writing, then, … Continue reading #EndangeredAlphabets: The Saddest Scripts
#EndangeredAlphabets: Beyond the Alphabet
The Adinkra symbol Aya, the fern, which stands for resilience and resourcefulness. Carving and photo by the author. My book Writing Beyond Writing came about because of the Adinkra symbols of Ghana. These are remarkable symbols, each of which is a kind of graphic shorthand for a proverb or piece of traditional wisdom—not a letter … Continue reading #EndangeredAlphabets: Beyond the Alphabet
#Endangered Alphabets: The Gnostic Script
Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Mandaic script. Carving and photo by the author. Many, many of the world's less-known scripts might change the way you think about writing, but none more so, I suspect, than the Mandaic. The Mandaeans have possibly the most exquisite awareness of the importance of … Continue reading #Endangered Alphabets: The Gnostic Script
#EndangeredAlphabets: Is it Ogham Or Ogam? And In Any Case, How Do You Say It?
“At the Edge of the Wood” (2009) by Irish sculptor Fidelma Massey. It spells TAOBH NA COILLE, the name of the Gaelscoil in Beallairmín, An Chéim / Belarmine, Stepaside, Co. Dublin, in vertical Ogam.http://www.fidelmamassey.com/large-works Today's post has a serious part and a light-hearted part. Leave 'em laughing, they say, though whether what goes for vaudeville … Continue reading #EndangeredAlphabets: Is it Ogham Or Ogam? And In Any Case, How Do You Say It?
#EndangeredAlphabets: Another Script Author Murdered
Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Pahauh Hmong script One of the most interesting discoveries results of research by the Endangered Alphabets Project is that fully half of all scripts in use around the world today were not adopted and/or adapted from an existing script—they were invented by an individual or … Continue reading #EndangeredAlphabets: Another Script Author Murdered
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 