I’m sorry to trouble your weekend with a note of alarm, but my Endangered Alphabets Calligraphy Kickstarter campaign needs to raise at least $2,000 by the end of the weekend to have a chance of meeting its goal. Please help if you can by backing HERE. On a lighter note, tomorrow we’re going to have another of […]
Thread 1: My hero, the Australian anthropologist Piers Kelly, has written extensively about cultures, especially in Southeast Asia, that have their own mythic narratives in which they were given writing by a deity, but owing to bad luck, enemy action or their own foolishness, lost it. (There’s a chapter about the topic in my book […]
Great news: we reached our goal with 24 hours to spare! A thousand thanks to everyone who helped us. If we go more than $1,000 over our goal–in other words, if we reach $18,500 by noon EST tomorrow, Friday–I’ll do an audiobook edition (there are those who see me as the David Attenborough of the […]
We’re under way, and it’s time to dive in. The campaign to fund the publication of my new book, Writing Beyond Writing: Voyages Among Endangered Alphabets, is off and running, and, based on a suggestion from one of you, I’ve already added a new reward–the ebook edition, for those of you who like reading in […]
I’m looking for high-quality photos of pieces of writing in endangered alphabets to include in my upcoming book, Writing Beyond Writing: Voyages Among Endangered Alphabets. The three best submissions will each win $100, and will be published in the book along with credit for the photographer. Rules: The photo must be high resolution, at least […]
People often ask me, how does an alphabet become endangered? Assuming my Kickstarter campaign is successful, I’m going to include the Bamum script on my large statement sculpture to illustrate one all-too-common way. Starting around 1896, twenty-five-year-old King Ibrahim Njoya of the Bamum Kingdom in Cameroon invented a writing system for his people’s language. He […]
Just a quick note to say that it’s the last day of our Red List fundraising effort, and with less than $1000 to go, we’re like one of those arcade games where the slightest nudge will send the coin over the edge…. https://www.endangeredalphabets.com/how-to-support-us/
Today is the official launch day of our book of Endangered Alphabets Word Search Puzzles, and I must say, we’re pretty jazzed. This is the latest manifestation of my belief that the best way to introduce someone to a new language or script is through games: 20 puzzles in 11 scripts ancient and modern from […]
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 […]
