Endangered Alphabets

by Tim Brookes

The goal of Endangered Alphabets, the book, is to act as a catalogue to the exhibition, but to go farther and raise questions about writing itself: how it develops, what it expresses beyond straightforward meaning, how it is being affected by all the rapid changes in technology.

In his Introduction to Endangered Alphabets, David Crystal writes:

“This is an unusual book, combining elements of linguistics, aesthetics, biography, and travelogue. The vocabularies of art and linguistic science become bedfellows, and each seems comfortable with the other. Its honest account of the trials and tribulations of a woodcarver will be a revelation to anyone who has not thought about how such things come to be. The dispassionate observation of a script, seen through the carver’s eye, adds a fresh dimension to our understanding of how a writing system emerges.

“But ‘dispassionate’ is wrong, for one of the main features of this book is the way it conveys its author-carver’s fascination with his subject. Endangered Alphabets is one of a growing genre of accounts of work which is steadily humanizing linguistics, exploring the motivation of those who study languages and those who are the subjects of study. Our appreciation of the character of written language has been greatly increased by Tim Brookes’ sculptural odyssey.”

Genres: Linguistics, Language, Nonfiction

About the author

I was born in England to parents who were poor, honest, and loved nothing more than going for long walks, preferably in the rain. My education consisted of being forced to take written exams every five or six weeks, and eat school lunches of liver and onions-until I got to Oxford, where we had written exams every eight weeks and had lunches of pickled onions and Guinness.
This was quite enough to make me flee the country and seek gainful employment in Vermont, where I have lived for 24 years, writing a great deal, playing the guitar, carving endangered alphabets, and trying to grow good raspberries.

Reviews

[Petr · Rating 4 out of 5]

I supported Mr Brookes on Kickstarter in one of his campaigns and received this book without exactly looking into it. So it did not meet my initial expectations and I was disappointed that the book did not deal on an academic level with the endangered alphabets. Especially after shoutouts (also seen here on Goodreads) that this book is recommended as an introduction to linguistic concepts or recommended for any linguist. No, it is not. This is not a scientific book, but an art book about scripts. I would recommend it to script enthusiasts but not to people who want to learn the facts about the scripts as Mr Brookes even admits he does not have the necessary background knowledge to categorize the scripts or describe them with the proper linguistic terminology.

However, I am really happy I did not stop there. I gave it a chance and continued reading even after my initial reaction and loved it. The personal journey Mr Brookes with all its surprises, mishaps, discoveries, and thoughts is captivating and I found it, for a lack of better words, tender and calming. The reader learns about the alphabets in a very human-level way and not from the perspective of an ivory academic analysis or summary and this makes one, I believe, more empathic towards the struggles of these people and their scripts.

The only thing that I really miss, which might be caused by the book being primarily an exhibition/artwork supplement, is the lack of a list of references for academic books. Yet, one can find many authors or references mentioned in the book itself, but it would be great to have them listed separately.

[Sven · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book of inspiration and joy for languages, scripts, and the people who use them. And it is beautiful, too!

For any linguist, this is highly recommended!

[Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Earnest and wide-ranging. Good introduction to many linguistic concepts.