Category: Writing, fonts & typography

Ductus

By Simon

I came across the word ductus today in an interesting article about the origins of the writing. The articles focuses particularly on the development of the Latin/Roman alphabet and traces it’s origins back to ancient Egypt.

Ductus /ˈdʌktəs/ means:

1. the number of strokes that make up a written letter, and the direction, sequence and speed in which they are written
2. a subtle reduction of weight towards the middle of the stroke of the letter
3. (medicine) a duct, tube or canal in the body

Etymology: from Latin, perfect passive participle of dūcō (to lead), from the Proto-Indo-European root *deuk- (to lead), which is also the root of duct, and duke, via the Old French duc and the Latin dux

[Sources: wiktionary and myEtymology.com]

The article uses it in the second sense when talking about how letters shapes have changed and been simplified over time.

The first sense could be used when talking about Chinese Hanzi / Japanese Kanji / Korean Hanja, as the direction and sequence of strokes used to write such characters is fixed and has to be memorised when learning them, and the number of strokes is used to order them in dictionaries and indices.

Incidentally, I’ve just added a page about the Proto-Sinaitic / Proto-Canaanite script , one of the earliest alphabetic scripts, and one of the scripts mentioned in the article.

Avoiuli

By Simon

Example of the Avoiuli script

Avoiuli is a writing system used on Pentecost Island in Vanuatu which was brought to my attention today – the image on the right shows an example of the script inscribed on a stone.

Apparently Chief Viraleo Boborenvanua based the script on traditional sand drawings and spent 14 years developing it, and it is used for record keeping by the Tangbunia indigenous bank.

I’ve put together a page about this script and the language it’s used to write, Raga, but haven’t been able to find a chart showing the Avoiuli letters or any other illustrations of the script.

Do any of you know anything more about this script, or where I can find more details?

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Endangered Alphabets Poetry Project

By Simon

Today’s post comes from Tim Brookes

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

My Endangered Alphabets Project is in the process of giving birth to a new phase: the Endangered Alphabets Poetry Project. Let me explain what I’m trying to do.

I’ve written a short, simple poem about the importance of preserving endangered languages in their spoken and written forms. It goes like this:

These are our words, shaped
By our hands, our tools,
Our history. Lose them
And we lose ourselves.

If it makes the translation easier, it could also be written like this:

These are our words, shaped
By our hands, our tools,
Our history. If we lose our words,
We lose ourselves.

I would like to get this poem translated, with your help, into as many endangered languages–in their original scripts–as possible.

I’m hoping that you may be able to translate the poem into any of the world’s minority or endangered writing systems, or, failing that, pass the poem on to someone who can.

I don’t have an urgent deadline. If I could get the first of these translations within a few weeks, I can start working-and if it takes two or three months for them all to trickle in, that’s fine.

Once I have the translations, I’d like to create two pieces of work with them-two different versions of the project.

For one of these versions, I’ll pass the text along to Bob Holman, who has won a substantial grant to have poems projected onto the sides of large buildings in New York. He’s very interested in projecting poems in endangered languages and endangered alphabets.

The other version will be another major carving project. I plan to build a sculpture that consists of four tall pieces of beautiful maple wood, each facing toward a different point of the compass. Each face of the sculpture will display the poem in two, three or four endangered alphabets, depending how many I’m able to collect. This sculpture will then go on permanent exhibition in a major public building in the United States.

I hope very much you’re as interested in this project as I am. If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

For more information on the Endangered Alphabets, please visit http://www.endangeredalphabets.com.

With very best wishes,

Tim Brookes
Director, Professional Writing Program,
Champlain College, Burlington, Vermont

Endangered Alphabets Project

By Simon

Today’s post is an appeal for your help from Tim Brookes.

Dear fellow linguists, anthropologists and scholars in general all across the planet:

Having finished my original Endangered Alphabets Project, I’m now starting a similar carving project whose aim once again is to draw attention to the world’s vanishing scripts — and I need your help.

The project will have many different outcomes. If all goes well, it will result in endangered scripts being combined with an endangered languages poetry project, being carved and displayed throughout the U.S. and in other countries, and even being projected onto the sides of major U.S. buildings.

For this to happen, though, I need to be in touch with people who can read and write these disappearing scripts well enough to be able to translate a short text for me.

Here are the scripts in which I am especially interested, and as yet have nobody who can act as a translator:

Redjang
Bamum
Balinese
Manchu
Nushu
Ranjana/Lantsa
N’Ko
Buhid
Tai Dam
Javanese
Maldivian/Thaana

If you happen to be able to read and write in one or more of these scripts and are interested in joining me in this project by translating a four-line poem, please contact me at brookes@champlain.edu. Needless to say, I’ll credit you in all written materials.

If you think you may know of someone else who may be able to help, please forward this appeal to him or her.

Thanks so much, and best wishes,
Tim Brookes
brookes@champlain.edu