Of all my adventures around the world of writing, the most startling and revealing happened closest to my home. Googling “Linguistics Program” took me to the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), which offers an amazing range of linguistics courses, including, but not limited to: Computational Linguistics Discourse Analysis Eye-tracking Field work First Language Acquisition Historical Socio-linguistics … Continue reading #EndangeredAlphabets: Final Post: An Adventure, A Doughnut Hole, A New Curriculum, An Appeal
#EndangeredAlphabets: Where Are We Going, Where Have We Been?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J-lQuyr0Yw&list=PLYG37Sb2buKjaMtjztHjDc5pSS1a1jorr&index=12 My month here is almost over, and I've taken you all to so many places around the world, and brought up so many ideas about the nature and purpose of writing that it's not easy to wrap everything up. So I'm going to steal from myself, and offer you the wrap-up I created for … Continue reading #EndangeredAlphabets: Where Are We Going, Where Have We Been?
#EndangeredAlphabets: How Do You Go About Reviving a Traditional Script? Case Study: Bali
"Suksma," or "Thank you," in the traditional Balinese language and script. Photo and carving by the author. Fairly often I get asked: what does it take to revive a traditional script that has been unused, or largely unused, for years? Decades? Centuries? Much less often, I actually have a clear, detailed answer. In this case, … Continue reading #EndangeredAlphabets: How Do You Go About Reviving a Traditional Script? Case Study: Bali
International Mother (Written) Language Day
International Mother Language Day, February 21st, is a kind of well-intentioned bureaucratic expansion of the Bangladesh observance of National Martyrs Day, a remembrance of the day in 1952 when five people were killed for protesting their right to speak Bengali (Bangla) rather than Urdu, the official language of the new state of Pakistan. What came … Continue reading International Mother (Written) Language Day
#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
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 