Ulus Goes Home

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Last weekend, I drove down to the New York metro area to introduce Ulus to the gaming community and to introduce some of the Ulus design team to each other.

It was a wonderful trip, and the highpoint was a meeting on Sunday on the Rutgers University campus with Togochog Enghebatu, the director of the Southern Mongolia Human Rights Information Center, or Enkhbat for short.

As I said in my last newsletter, the entire Ulus project was sparked into life by a photo on the SMHRIC website of a boy protesting the suppression of the Mongolian language by the Chinese government. He was holding up a banner he had made himself in calligraphy in the endangered traditional Mongolian script. It read “A foreign language is a tool; our mother tongue is our soul.” I carved that saying in a slab of Vermont maple, and on Sunday I presented the carving to Enkhbat.

My carving was very well received, and its impact reminded me how strong a statement a piece of text in a piece of wood can make—so much so, in fact, that it has helped me decide what our next Kickstarter campaign will be, early in the New Year. Stay tuned….

Enkhbat reported that since last autumn, things in Southern Mongolia have become steadily worse.

“Learning and using their mother tongue and practicing their traditions and way of life have become a crime in Southern Mongolia. Especially since last September, the Chinese colonial regime has become increasingly more oppressive, outlawing everything with Mongolian characteristics. The Mongolian language has been removed from all schools and educational systems; Mongolian books and publications are banned altogether; street signs, buildings and sculptures with even the smallest hints of Mongolian identity have been summarily smashed; being Mongolian itself is a crime in Southern Mongolia.” 

He pointed out that the repression is not simply a matter of linguistics. Over the past 20 years the Chinese have systematically destroyed the Mongols’ nomadic herding way of life and the traditions they have practiced for a thousand years. “All we have left is our language,” he said, “and now they are destroying that too.”

Supporting the traditional Mongolian script, so central to Mongolian culture, is the kind of work the Endangered Alphabets Project is about. We can’t do it without you, in turn, supporting us. This is perhaps a good time to point out that our year-end campaign is trying to raise $5000 by December 31st.

So far we have raised $1,100, which is a very good start. I believe we are doing good work, and important work, and the kind of work our supporters want us to do. If year-end donations are part of your financial plan, I hope you’ll consider supporting us by making a contribution at https://www.endangeredalphabets.com/how-to-support-us/.

Thanks!