Endangered Alphabets Project poster, 2020. Design by Alec Julien, carving and photo by the author. The elegant maps that illustrate the spread of writing take at best a satellite’s-eye view of what really happens when one culture adopts writing from another. It may look as though writing spreads like a good idea (and there are … Continue reading #EndangeredAlphabets: Roman Column
#EndangeredAlphabets: Two Cheers for Rongorongo
Rongorongo. Source: Wikipedia. Even though my work is more about endangered scripts than those no longer in use, I love Rongorongo, a glyph system discovered over a century ago on Rapa Nui, a.k.a. Easter Island., which recently returned to the news through a rather breathless article in Smithsonian magazine. What makes Rongorongo, which has so … Continue reading #EndangeredAlphabets: Two Cheers for Rongorongo
#EndangeredAlphabets: The Survivor Script
Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Samaritan. Carving and photo by the author. During the current catastrophe in the Middle East, it may be reassuring to hear a story of survival. Let’s go back two thousand years to the region confusingly called the Holy Land—confusing, because it was (and is) considered … Continue reading #EndangeredAlphabets: The Survivor Script
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 