At this very moment, someone is working to create a new, unique script for their culture and their language. We know of more than 125 scripts that were created by individuals on behalf of their people, most of which have struggled to gain acceptance and wide and prolonged usage, and for that reason they are […]
We’re used to reading the sad news that the last speaker of a language has died, and with them we lose not only that language’s vocabulary but its subtler infrastructure: its syntax, its tones, its use of tenses and sequences that may never have been recorded, or documented. The world of scripts is just as […]
Here’s the news several of you have already asked about: I think we met our Red List launch goal. Or rather you met our goal. (All I did was send out the annoying emails.) I can’t be entirely sure, as some of you chose to send checks rather than go through electronic transfers, and they […]
Our goal is to raise $11,500 by the end of the month, and we have roughly $2,500 to go. By now, you probably already know of my plan to create the Red List of Endangered and Emerging Alphabets, which will be the first-ever catalogue of all the world’s scripts, assessing the health (or vulnerability) of […]
ONLY FIVE DAYS LEFT to help us reach our goal of $11,500 to fund the launch of our project to create a Red List of Endangered and Emerging Alphabets. We are more than halfway there, but now the race is on. Please check out the video and back this groundbreaking work at https://www.endangeredalphabets.com/how-to-support-us/. Meanwhile, let […]
Dear Friend of the Endangered Alphabets: I wish I could sit down with you, one on one, and explain just how radical a change we are trying to effect with the upcoming Red List project. (I have a short video in which I try to do just that, but the file’s too big to insert […]
Dear Friends of the Endangered Alphabets: I’m writing in the hope that you will support our next initiative, one that is not only our most ambitious to date but that will change the way the world sees writing, and writing systems, and the people—especially indigenous and minority people—who use them. Here’s the situation. I’m sure […]
By my calculations, at least a hundred new scripts have been created in the past half-century. I’m not talking about scripts created for private use, or for use in fiction, film, or television, but scripts intended to give practical visual identity to a language that had previously been using a script imported from, or imposed […]
If you like chocolate, you ultimately owe it to the Aztecs, who would drink a cocoa-based beverage called chocolatl. You may also have heard other words, such as Tenochtitlan (the capital of the Aztec Empire), Quetzalcoatl (an Aztec deity, after whom the pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus is named), or atlatl (a device used to throw spears). All […]
By my calculations, at least a hundred new scripts have been created in the past century. I’m not talking about scripts created for private use, or for use in fiction, film, or television, but scripts intended to give practical visual identity to a language that had previously been using a script imported from, or imposed […]
