We have no idea what we don't know about writing until we see someone doing something else with it. And it's my great good fortune that in voyaging about among the endangered alphabets, I've found people doing things with writing that change the very definition of writing. This delightful image, for example, is a detail … Continue reading #EndangeredAlphabets: Consider the Mermaid
Exploring the World of Endangered Alphabets
Fourteen years ago, for reasons so odd and random they don’t bear explaining in brief, I began to carve pieces of text in endangered alphabets. I couldn’t read or pronounce any of the words or phrases I was carving. I wasn’t an anthropologist or a linguist—I wasn’t even a woodworker. What I didn’t yet suspect … Continue reading Exploring the World of Endangered Alphabets