One of the touching and altogether wonderful features of my current Kickstarter campaign is the fact that a number of linguists, recruited by the indefatigable Naoki Watanabe and working through Facebook, have translated my overall project description into other languages. As someone who after a lifetime of writing has had only one book translated into […]
This is why I love what I do. Early this morning Jerson Partible contacted me asking me if I want to carve something in Tagbanwa. I had never even heard of Tagbanwa. Within a couple of hours he had sent me this. It’s the phrase “mother tongue,” and it will be part of my exhibition […]
Our good friend (and member of the Endangered Alphabets Advisory Board) David Crystal has released yet another book–perhaps a little more tongue-in-cheek than his Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, but surely destined to be another classic. Here is the press release:
I’m going to be showing and talking about a selection of Endangered Alphabets carvings in the near future–at the Lyceum in Bedford, Massachusetts at NOON on Sunday, May 15th, in Room 202. If you’re nearby, please swing by and say hello! Tim P.S. Thanks to the citizens of Springfield, Vermont, for a great turnout to […]
A few months ago I was contacted by Ivan Brenes, an English-language instructor at Osaka University, Japan, who told me about a minority culture I’d never heard of: the Ainu. According to the Ainu Museum website, the word “Ainu” means “human.” Ainu culture flourished in the northern islands of Japan, especially Hokkaido, from about 1400-1700. As the […]
Today is International Mother Language Day. Here are photos of Harvard students observing and celebrating the day with copies of our poster, based on my Mother Tongue poster that has been shipped to Bangladesh for display in Chittagong. Photos by Maung Nyeu, our collaborator on the Our Golden Hour education project. Poster design by Alec […]
My apologies if you’ve heard this through another channel, but I wanted to let you know what’s happening with my current Kickstarter campaign. The original goal was for a short, sweet campaign to raise $1,000 so I could do a carving celebrating Mother Tongue Day (February 21st) and send it to Bangladesh, where there are […]
Last month, I drove down to Cambridge to deliver the latest pieces in our work to help indigenous children in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. My collaborator, Maung Nyeu, displays the carvings I recently completed–the numbers 9 and 10 in Mro, Marma, Chakma and Bangla. These will go on the doors of the Grade […]
Some amazing news. Thanks to the help of Dan Kaufman of the Endangered Language Alliance, I’ve finally managed to contact someone who knows Bamum. Here’s the backstory. I’ve been looking for someone who can read and write Bamum, a script from one of the many districts of Cameroon, ever since I started the Alphabets more […]
September is always the busiest month for the Endangered Alphabets, and this year is no exception: one successful public show has already happened, one opportunity for you to see me and the Alphabets live is coming up, and at the end of the month I’m launching my most ambitious Kickstarter campaign yet, for my most […]
