Endangered Alphabets Second Edition

Since its first exhibition in 2010, Tim Brookes' art/woodwork/design/calligraphy/language/anthropology creation, the Endangered Alphabets Project, has been exhibited all over North America, including displays and talks at Harvard, Yale, and the Smithsonian.It has also added a new dimension to the important work being conducted by the endangered languages movement: the Endangered Alphabets raise the question of what happens when a culture loses, or is forbidden, the way of writing it created, and which expresses its history and identity?This groundbreaking endeavor--Brookes coined the term "endangered alphabets"--is now followed all over the world. This expanded second edition tells the story of how the Endangered Alphabets were born, how they grew, the questions the project raised and continues to raise, and why it is vital to protect and preserve minority cultures everywhere.

"The world has more than 6,000 languages, but those languages are written in fewer than 100 alphabets--more than a third of which are endangered. Oddly gnarly or staggeringly beautiful, all of them embody the history and intellectual achievements of their cultures. Some are now used only in ceremonial documents, some in magic spells, some in secret love letters. In this groundbreaking project, author Tim Brookes has carved thirteen of these endangered alphabets into stunning boards of Vermont maple, using as his text Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: 'All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.' This book is both the catalogue for that exhibition and an essay on writing from a unique perspective--that of a writer who is discovering new forms of writing by carving them before they vanish."--cover, p.4

A global exploration of the many writing systems that are on the verge of vanishing, and the stories and cultures they carry with them. If something is important, we write it down. Yet 85% of the world's writing systems are on the verge of vanishing - not granted official status, not taught in schools, discouraged and dismissed. When a culture is forced to abandon its traditional script, everything it has written for hundreds of years - sacred texts, poems, personal correspondence, legal documents, the collective experience, wisdom and identity of a people - is lost. This Atlas is about those writing systems, and the people who are trying to save them. From the ancient holy alphabets of the Middle East, now used only by tiny sects, to newly created African alphabets designed to keep cultural traditions alive in the twenty-first century: from a Sudanese script based on the ownership marks traditionally branded into camels, to a secret system used in one corner of China exclusively by women to record the songs and stories of their inner selves: this unique book profiles dozens of scripts and the cultures they encapsulate, offering glimpses of worlds unknown to us - and ways of saving them from vanishing entirely.

A collection of word search puzzles in minority and/or Indigenous writing systems.

A collection of word search puzzles in indigenous/minority writing systems of the world.

This volume showcases latest developments and innovations in teaching and learning materials in, about and for endangered languages, as well as discusses challenges in the production of such materials.

The multiple award-winning 'V for Vanishing' highlights some endangered animals and some that are already extinct. Patricia Mullins' evocative, torn-tissue collage interpretations of these magnificent and fascinating creatures portray their beauty and their fragile existence.