Love is both parts pleasure and pain, and it can be torturous to attempt to convey love in poetry. Penning my partner’s annual Valentine’s Day card, this author commonly hears the phrase ‘You don’t have to write a novel.’ Taken in stride, this statement could mean one ought to be more economical or, perhaps, think … Continue reading Broken Hearts Club: To Show Love, Joy and Hardship in Nahua-Mixteca Writing System
Your Stories: Abdou Salam Fifen – On the invention of the Bamun Script: an ancestral manifestation through Njoya
Abdou Salam Fifen tells us about the origins of the Bamun Script. It was originally written in French and has been translated into English by Philip Boyes - both versions can be found below. English version The Bamun Script was invented in 1896 by King Njoya in a context where Africans were considered to have … Continue reading Your Stories: Abdou Salam Fifen – On the invention of the Bamun Script: an ancestral manifestation through Njoya
(Re)Viewing Latin – The Roman Writing System
January is named after the Roman god, Janus – the god of doors or gateways (ianua in Latin). This gave him some metaphorical associations, too: as Nicholas Purcell puts it, ‘like a door, he looked both ways’. He is a god of beginnings, of looking to the future; but he also represents endings, looking back … Continue reading (Re)Viewing Latin – The Roman Writing System
Writing needs
Today is World Endangered Writing Day! A day to celebrate the diversity of writing traditions across the world - and to think about how to support the writing of minority languages. I want to use this post to launch a new resource of the Endangered Writing Network: Assess Your Language's Writing Needs. The idea is … Continue reading Writing needs
Seminars on the Ancient Levant and Greece
We have two events this term, each held on Wednesdays at 16.30 GMT/UTC in hybrid mode: in room 1.11, Faculty of Classics, Cambridge (with tea for in person attendees at 16.15), and online.26th February (double event)Avraham Faust: The Locus of Writing: Viewing Literacy in Iron Age Israel and Judah.Hannah Bash: Writing, Materiality, and Orality in … Continue reading Seminars on the Ancient Levant and Greece
World Endangered Writing Day: WEWD 2025
It's nearly here - 23rd January every year is World Endangered Writing Day, a day dedicated to the world's diverse writing systems and celebrating the work being done to protect the cultural and linguistic traditions of minority cultures. The celebration is hosted by the Endangered Alphabets Project with our friend and colleague Tim Brookes. WEWD … Continue reading World Endangered Writing Day: WEWD 2025
Snow signs
Well it's midwinter, and those of us in the northern hemisphere tend to like a bit of snow at this time of year. Love it or hate it, it's taken on an iconic status for winter, with picturesque white landscapes such as that longed for by Bing Crosby. But what do you call it and … Continue reading Snow signs
Monumental Inscriptions and the Politics of Destruction
In 858 BCE, Shalmaneser III acceded to the Neo-Assyrian throne. He quickly began campaigning across the Euphrates, to the lands west of Assyria. It didn’t take long before his campaigns reached the Levant - the land on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, stretching from Syria, Cyprus, and the southern reaches of Turkey in the … Continue reading Monumental Inscriptions and the Politics of Destruction
Your Stories: Rhiannon Smith – Elvish
Elen silë lúmenn’ omentielvo A star shines on the hour of our meeting I started learning Latin when I was 11, read Lord of the Rings for the first time when I was 14 and started specialising in Linguistics during my undergrad. It was therefore only a matter of time before I delved into Tolkien’s … Continue reading Your Stories: Rhiannon Smith – Elvish
Writing As Visual Experience: the WAVE conference
On 19th-22nd September 2024, after months of planning, it was finally time for the first VIEWS project conference: Writing As Visual Experience, or WAVE. The idea behind it was to bring together a wide range of people working in some way with visual aspects of writing. We thought it would be interesting, but we had … Continue reading Writing As Visual Experience: the WAVE conference
The VIEWS project 