On National Handwriting Day (which I have unilaterally extended to be World Minority Script Day) I thought I’d re-post this short essay of mine on cursive script. Ever since I started displaying the Endangered Alphabets carvings and speaking about them, nine years ago, the most common question I’ve been asked—in fact, I’m not sure I’ve […]
Alert readers of this blog know we have been presenting monthly profiles of people making art, especially calligraphy and type design, from their traditional writing systems. In this special two-month edition, we present perhaps the most extensive and yet the most threatened art form in an endangered alphabet: Mongolian calligraphy. The centuries-old Mongolian tradition of […]
Creating an alphabet may seem like a harmless pastime, and author-designers inventing conscripts for science fiction/alternative-reality novels or television series are probably only at risk of eyestrain and carpal tunnel syndrome. As soon as writing has a political or religious purpose, though, things change. It’s a sign of how powerful a force writing can be […]
At the end of my recent Kickstarter campaign I posted a photo of a carving I had been working on over the last 48 hours, which read “Sunrise” in classic Mongolian vertical bichig script. My Facebook friend Kellar Alsup asked me why I carve anything in bichig script, given that it has official recognition in […]
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 […]
