One of the most interesting discoveries results of research by the Endangered Alphabets Project is that fully half of all scripts in use around the wo

#EndangeredAlphabets: Another Script Author Murdered

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2024-04-29 16:00:11

One of the most interesting discoveries results of research by the Endangered Alphabets Project is that fully half of all scripts in use around the world today were not adopted and/or adapted from an existing script—they were invented by an individual or group wanting to give their community its own writing system.

What this means is that those “family tree of writing systems” diagrams are incomplete and badly misleading, as they never include such “custom” scripts.

Let’s stop right there and examine the phrase “death of their creator.” Because the forces working against custom or indigenous scripts are so powerful that even if you create a script for your people’s culture and it is gleefully adopted and has the effect of bringing them together and giving them a greater sense of identity, history, purpose, and value, the very forces that were marginalizing your people may not be happy about your success.

They may make sure the new script is ignored, or not taught in schools, or not used in official publications. In extreme cases, the authorities may engineer the death of their creator.