Writing Beyond Writing: Lessons from Endangered Alphabets

by Tim Brookes

The outcome of a life's work as a successful writer and a dozen years of researching the world's indigenous and minority writing systems, Writing Beyond Writing is an entirely original exploration of writing itself. As the world's leading investigator of rare alphabets, Brookes examines the world's fascinating and often stunning disappearing minority scripts and shows that writing can and often does have qualities we have forgotten--iconic qualities, community values, spiritual qualities, even magical qualities. He considers the ways in which we in the West have increasingly defined writing as something abstract, purely symbolic, merely a mechanical tool for representing the sounds of speech, and asks what is lost when writing is reduced to such a narrow and colorless definition. Yet the author shows that just as many cultures around the world are reviving their embattled traditional alphabets, even in the West the old division between writing and art is being healed in surprising ways, right under our noses.

Genres: Language

178 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2024

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

[M.J. Pankey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A ground-breaking exploration of writing and endangered alphabets from around the world; with deep insight into why we must advocate for the preservation of endangered alphabets and the cultures who use them.

Tim Brookes took me on a journey through the art and meaning of the craft of writing from ancient times to modern day, covering the Latin alphabet to marginalized alphabets in the remotest areas of the world. Oh my goodness was it fascinating!

As a lifelong learner, I love reading books that explore challenging historical and social themes in new and inventive ways, and boy, did Tim knock this out of the park!

Tim takes the reader along with him on his journey from curious woodcarver to passionate hobbyist, researcher, and activist, engaging readers in thoughtful discussion on the history of how the Latin alphabet became globally dominant, and how marginalized cultures with unique writing systems have been impacted through the centuries into today.

The deeper discussion though, the one that seemed to speak to my very soul, is what writing truly means for our cultural and personal identities, and the knowledge that writing, in any script, but especially endangered scripts, is a human right that has been violated in so many ways both past and present.

I have honestly never been so enlightened by the contents of a book since my very first introduction to Philosophy back in 2007.

Tim's work is critical to our understanding of humanity as a whole, and I encourage everyone who values discourse on cultural identity, history, and sociology to read this book and support Tim's Endangered Alphabets project.

I interviewed the author for Save Ancient Studies Alliance, and it was one of my favorite interviews to date. You can watch that interview here:

https://youtu.be/s54JxQf8Xt4?si=ODufG...

[Sven · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book about language, communication, and beauty of writing. Learn the amazing history of scripts and how they preserve culture and identity of communities in all corners of the world. Writing isn't the same as spoken language, and it often carries political as well as simply informational messaging.

The history of writing systems is indeed convoluted, with numerous religious and even guerilla aspects. Can we even imaging a world without writing? How would your life be different if your alphabet disappeared?

Writing as art is critical, too, and the specific shapes of letters often determines the acceptability and meaning of the words encoding in the script. Tim Brooks gives a taste of the care and sensitivity invoked by beautiful text lovingly created.

Enjoy!