The Day is Done, but the Game Survives
Dear friends of the Endangered Alphabets and also of puzzles and games:
World Endangered Writing Day 2024 was a huge success, and continues to be a success as people flock to our YouTube channel
to catch the videos of talks they didn’t manage to see live, or that have been recommended to them by friends who did.
As I hope you know, one of the activities of WEWD2024 was a Second Wave relaunch of the Atlas of Endangered Alphabets with 100 more script profiles added. The expanded Atlas conceals THE CHANCE TO WIN AN EXTRAORDINARY PRIZE: the handmade carving that is the basis for the World Endangered Writing Day logo, in the traditional Kulitan script for the islands now known as the Philippines, which translates into English as “writing.”
The profiles of the 100 new scripts are peppered with clues, many of them red herrings. If you can sort out the real clues from the fake, you will end up with a 12-word sentence about writing—a sentence that (to give a further clue) also appears in my new book Writing Beyond Writing: Lessons from Endangered Alphabets.
The author of the first correct solution, submitted by email to admin@endangeredalphabets.com, will win the carving.
By all means work on the challenge with friends or family members, but remember–if you win, you have to decide who gets the carving.
Warning: it is not an easy puzzle; but then again, it is not an ordinary prize.
Finally, we would love to thank everyone who made WEWD2024 possible:
Our sponsors:
BureauWorks
Kamaka
Lexigo
Phrase.
Our partners: American Amazigh Network Organization
Calligraphy Research Group
Global Coalition for Language Rights
International Research Centre for Calligraphy
Language Conservancy
LocWorld
MultiLingual Magazine.
Mundolingua
National Museum of Language
VIEWS Project
Our speakers:
Kajama Chakma
Amalia Gnanadesikan
Sabine Hyland
Maung Nyeu
Anshuman Pandey
Samar Sinha
Pippa Steele
Jue Wang Szilas
Olgierd Uziemblo and the Sign and Symbol Research Project
Our production team:
Global Web Designer Drea Sullivan
Court Composer Patricia Julien
Executive Senior Line Producer Alec Julien
Streaming Video Producer Oscar Betancourt Beltran
Okay. Now get cracking on that puzzle!
Tim