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Astrological charts, incantation bowls, magical spells,
scriptures and prayers. Can these be tools of scientific enquiry?
Absolutely…when they are the sole examples of an otherwise extinct
writing system. How can we use the supernatural to uncover truths about
language?
The world’s 3000
endangered languages have long been the concern of anthropologists and
linguists. In a race against time, specialists are dedicated to codifying
these languages, before the final speakers die, and the language dies
with them. This involves extensive field work; collecting language data, analysing grammar, compiling a dictionary and
creating symbols to represent the language, i.e. a writing system.
When native English speakers
think of writing systems, they probably only think of the one
you’re reading right now, the (modern) Latin alphabet. We share
this script with hundreds of other languages. But there are many other
kinds of alphabets in existence, scripts that generally use a symbol for
each sound. Other writing systems include abjads,
representing consonants only; syllabaries
that represent syllables, and ideographs, images that
represent ideas. But we rarely care or need to think of the strange,
incomprehensible patterns of other scripts.
Just as English is dominating
the economic world, our writing system is dominating the computer
industry. Imagine if your script wasn’t recognised
by your computer. Imagine if you couldn’t find an @, an ! or a ? This is a serious
problem faced by many speakers and scholars throughout the world.
For the past year, I have
been involved in a unique project, the Script Encoding Initiative. This
is led by Dr Deborah Anderson, of the University
of California, Berkeley, and in conjunction with
Unicode Vice President, Rick McGowan. The venture aims to encode over 100
historical and modern scripts and script elements that are not currently
supported in Unicode (The universal computing standard specifying the
representation of text in all modern software). This project entails the
enormous task of researching historical, linguistic and demographic
information, creating proposals, seeking funding and liaising with
communities. There is a sense of urgency as these processes take many
years, and there is a limited ‘window’ of opportunity.
Which scripts are currently
not encoded? There are historical forms, living minority scripts, and
others undergoing a revival. Some are obscure and ephemeral. The Albanian
Buthakukye script was used for only a short
period in the mid C19th. There are legendary ancient scripts, like the
Egyptian and Mayan Hieroglyphs, the Aztec pictographs, the Indus Valley script and the Linear A.
Some are ‘parent’ scripts, like
Aramaic, the proto-script of many Eastern scripts; and Brahmi, the
ancestor of all modern Indian and many Asian writing systems. Others are
exotic, mysterious scripts. There’s Rongo
Rongo, an undeciphered
script from Easter Island. Then
there’s Nushu, the secret “women’s writing” of China;
created and used exclusively by women. The Bassa
Vah of Liberia
was a secret code used by the Bassa people, to
avoid slave traders. There’s even Cirth
and Tengwar, the artificial scripts devised by
Tolkien for his fictitious languages of ‘Middle Earth’ (and
incidentally derived from Brahmi).
What extant examples are
there? We have a collection of love letters in the Phillipino
Mangyan script, and North Arabic graffiti from
the C4th. The earliest cuneiform writing was mainly for accountancy, much
like the Mende manuscripts from Sierra Leone.
Others had folkloric purposes, like the historical ballads written in the
Chakma script of Bangladesh,
and the poetry and plays in the Lepcha script
of India.
Sadly, many scripts are poorly attested, with few examples still in
existence. There are only a few stone inscriptions of the Byblos and Palmyrene
scripts. There are only scant remains of Pyu on
burial urns, and a small assortment of artefacts
inscribed with Cypro-Minoan.
What genre has provided us
with the most prolific and best preserved examples? Belief systems. Many
endangered scripts were created for liturgical or ritualistic purposes;
like Avestan, that is still used for
Zoroastrian scriptures. The Indonesian Batak
script is only understood and written by priests. Christian missionaries
were fervent in translating the Bible and prayers into local scripts.
Like Father LeJeune, who created the Chinook
script and produced a publication that lasted 30 years, bringing religion
and literacy to these indigenous people. Writing is often connected with
paranormal beliefs. Some believe the Mandaic script has magical
properties. While the Ersu Shaba of China and
Tibet, a picture writing system in which colour
expresses meaning, is used to write scriptures that are recited in
divination and when treating the sick.
As history, culture,
communication, and art, it would be tragic to lose these remarkable
scripts. Encoding them is vital for education, research, literacy,
technology and conservation. This is a project of universal importance;
for our past, present and future.
For more information, visit: http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/sei/index.html
Stollznow, K. 2006. The Writing’s On The Wall For The
World’s Endangered Scripts. Australasian Science. Vol. 27,
No. 7, p.46.
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