Ever since starting work on the Endangered Alphabets five years ago, I’ve been fascinated by the complicated and often mysterious relationship between a language (written or spoken) and the culture that developed it. But I’ve never had such a potent, vivid and moving illustration of that relationship as I had by watching the Philadelphia Orchestra […]
Phew! Thanks to generous support from several of you and a week of carving, painting, and finishing, eight pieces of maple, 6″x6″, are on their way to my friend Maung in Cambridge, and then with him to the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh. Each is to be mounted on the door of a classroom in […]
Article just out in JMAG, the teen magazine of the Dhaka Tribune. Find it by clicking HERE.
Just out for International Mother Language Day, a fine article on our friend, collaborator and team partner Maung Nyeu. Maung and I will be presenting on our work for the indigenous children of the Chittagong Hill Tracts this coming Friday, February 28th, at Harvard. If you’re in the area, contact me or just come by! […]
Just a heads-up on three fronts. February 21 is International Mother Language Day, a day to recognize, acknowledge, and celebrate the world’s indigenous languages, many of which are endangered. Here’s the official word: “The United Nations’ (UN) International Mother Language Day annually celebrates language diversity and variety worldwide on February 21. It also remembers events […]
When the Endangered Alphabets team was at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival this summer in Washington D.C., the tent next to ours was occupied by singers and dancers of the Kalmyk Republic, also known as Kalmykia. The Kalmyks, who originally came west with Genghis Khan and settled in the Caucasus, are a remarkable people in many […]
Between October 2-4, a group of some of the world’s top experts on indigenous languages met in Ottawa under the auspices of the Foundation for Endangered Languages. Some of the research presented at the conference is of direct and urgent relevance to the Chittagong Hill Tracts Project, a collaboration of the Endangered Alphabets and the Champlain […]
Between October 2-4, a group of some of the world’s top experts on indigenous languages met in Ottawa under the auspices of the Foundation for Endangered Languages. Some of the research presented at the conference is of direct and urgent relevance to the Chittagong Hill Tracts Project, a collaboration of the Endangered Alphabets and the […]
Between October 2-4, a group of some of the world’s top experts on indigenous languages met in Ottawa under the auspices of the Foundation for Endangered Languages. Some of the research presented at the conference is of direct and urgent relevance to the Chittagong Hill Tracts Project, a collaboration of the Endangered Alphabets and the […]
Terrence Sehr just sent me an article by Ali Eteraz on the decline and endangerment of the traditional Urdu script called nastaliq. It’s a great article, and it parallels what has been happening with both Chinese and Arabic–namely, the movement away from a script that embodies the movement of the human hand toward a simplified version […]
