Announcing a new Endangered Alphabets video feature: Carving of the Week! Since the launch of the Atlas of Endangered Alphabets (www.endangeredalphabets.net), people have been contacting us from all over the world, sending us new scripts that should be included. So each time we add a new script, I’ll carve it, paint it, and talk about […]
Spent the afternoon and evening painting the Ghanaian Adinkra symbol Aya, representing endurance and resourcefulness, soon to be included in the Atlas of Endangered Alphabets. Given that I’m trying to make the Endangered Alphabets Project financially sustainable, I need all the endurance and resourcefulness I can muster! Please consider helping us, at https://www.endangeredalphabets.net/support-our-work/. Thanks!
I was honoured to receive an award from Translators Without Borders for spreading the word about the ghastly situation facing the Rohingya. The photo is of the phrase “Mother tongue” I carved in Hanifi Rohingya and sent to their HQ for display. Hats off to TWB for the work they do for people facing the […]
Hey, everyone. Work on the free online Atlas of Endangered Alphabets is proceeding briskly with research into the scripts themselves (at current count, 120!), images of the scripts in use, links to fonts/apps/keyboard software/organizations working to preserve the scripts, and so on as we promised during our recent successful Kickstarter campaign. HERE’S THE NEXT STAGE. […]
After a year in the designing, re-designing, testing, re-redesigning, and so on, Glagolitic Abbey is finally ready for production. Surely the first board game ever created with the aim of reviving interest in an endangered alphabet, the game is something like a cross between Clue (Cluedo, if you’re British) and Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of […]
As I start gathering information for the Word Atlas of Endangered Alphabets, calling on friends and contacts and experts all over the world to amplify the little I know, I’ve also been carving a short text in Samaritan, one of the strangest and most interesting of the world’s writing systems. So strange and interesting, in […]
This afternoon it was my pleasure and privilege to present a carving of “We are still here” in Abenaki to Tom Beck on behalf of the Nulhegan Band at their cultural center in beautiful Barnet, Vermont. Tom was also kind enough to show us the remarkable garden of endangered and heirloom vegetables being grown from […]
Here’s the press release, in suitably official press release language: Half the world’s languages are in imminent danger of extinction—but Chittenden County word game lovers have the chance to help stop that decline. On Wednesday, December 13, area residents of the Champlain Valley region are invited to join the non-profit Endangered Alphabets Project at the […]
Here, thanks to a ridiculous amount of time on Photoshop (yes, I have been told it would have been easier in Illustrator, Indesign, or even Word), is what must surely be the first Word Search puzzle ever composed in Marma, one of the endangered indigenous languages of Bangladesh. The words, mostly for animals and fruit […]
No fewer than two opportunities to see the Endangered Alphabets (and me) this week if you’re in Vermont, upstate New York or Quebec. On Thursday evening at 6 p.m., the Alphabets are part of a double-exhibition at Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont. One part features artwork from 19th-century expeditions led by Norwich grads; the Alphabets […]
