Everyone likes a puzzle book for Christmas. How about one nobody has ever seen before–or even imagined? Endangered Alphabets Word Search Puzzles offers 20 puzzles in 11 languages that at first glance look like standard word searches: a grid with a mass of letters, out of which you have to find specific hidden words (listed beside […]
The most important feature of our game Ulus: Legends of the Nomads is the rich, amazing tapestry of Mongolian culture. The characters, drawn from Mongolian history and mythology, are full of fascinating gods, champions, and monsters. The game’s mystical and sacred locations alone, all of them factual, are amazing: the Mogao Caves, known as the […]
Language death and script death are often written about–most recently in The Economist–as if languages and alphabets die of natural causes, or misadventure. Not true. And if we discuss them in those terms, they are more likely to perish. I’d like to quote just three of the points made by Gerald Roche in this recent […]
One of the most enjoyable things about creating our game ULUS is discovering Mongol history and mythology. One of our main characters is actually an athlete in one of the three major traditional Mongol sports, wrestling–and she is a woman: Khutulun, the Wrestler. The great great granddaughter of Genghis Khan, and daughter of Kaidu, lord […]
Endangered Alphabets in Eight Scripts After the success of my live Open House Zoom series over the summer, I’m going to be offering an autumn live Zoom series called Endangered Alphabets in Eight Scripts. Each talk, which will last about 10-12 minutes (if I can rein in my enthusiasms), will tell the story of […]
The Endangered Alphabets are planning a major project to support the Mongolian people’s efforts to protect and promote their language and its beautiful traditional script, and we’ll need your help. We’re recruiting illustrators and Mongolian calligraphers and translators; we’ll also be launching a fundraiser to create a range of language tools, both educational and fun, […]
It is still remarkably rare for scholars to get involved in creating and promoting new writing systems, so it seems all the more worthwhile to pass along to you an article by Stephen Morey, an Australian scholar and expert in the Tai languages and scripts of South China, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. And as […]
Welcome to the third monthly Endangered Alphabets feature about calligraphy and type design–in indigenous and minority writing systems. Here’s the point. If a script exists only in historical documents, engravings, and inscriptions, it is all too easy to assume it is no longer in use, and the culture that created it has also been lost. […]
Last month, we started a new monthly Endangered Alphabets feature about calligraphy and type design–in indigenous and minority writing systems. Here’s the point. If a script exists only in historical documents, engravings, and inscriptions, it is all too easy to assume it is no longer in use, and the culture that created it has also […]
This time last year I was getting ready to set up an Endangered Alphabets carving exhibition in the Vermont State House–an exhibition whose flagship carving was this tribute to the Native people of the region, the Abenaki. It says “People of the Dawn Lands”–the Abenaki name for themselves–in Abenaki. A lot has happened since then. […]
