In 2016 It Was Decided,

that 2019 would be a special year,

at that meeting in 2016 it was estimated that 40% of the world’s 6,700 languages were at risk of disappearing, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed that 2019 would be the International Year of Indigenous Languages, the declaration’s goal was to raise awareness for disappearing language systems around the world, while mobilizing a coordinated global effort to help preserve them, above the Yi alphabet, a script created during the Tang dynasty in China (618-907 AD), all images via the Atlas of Endangered Alphabets,

  an example of Mandombe, an indigenously-created script of sub-Saharan Africa, which is said to be the only writing system in the world that looks like a brick wall,but why save these languages? well to lose so many of these languages threatens the history of the associated cultures, while also erasing thousands of years of knowledge systems valuable for protecting the environment, peace making, and national resource development,

 a bilingual plague in Portugese and Javanese, The Endangered Alphabets Project is a Vermont-based nonprofit organization that supports endangered, minority, and indigenous cultures by helping to preserve their writing systems. For the past six years they have researched and compiled information on endangered languages, exhibited artwork using the cultures’ sayings, proverbs, and spiritual texts, and partnered with organizations to publish educational materials and games in endangered languages,

 a street sign in Thaana, the script of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, image by Eric Lafforgue, through their research they have also created an interactive website that tracks these languages across the globe, The Atlas of Endangered Alphabets is a clickable map compiled from languages across the world. Many of these scripts do not have an official status in their country, state, or province, and are not taught in government-funded schools, 

a Siddham manuscript of the Heart Sutra, “My goal is to include scripts from indigenous and minority cultures who are in danger of losing their sense of history, identity, and purpose and who are trying to protect, preserve and/or revive their writing system as a way of reconnecting to their past, their dignity, their sense of a way ahead,” explained Tim Brookes, the founder and president of the Endangered Alphabets Project. “A traditional script is a visual reminder of a people’s identity—as we can tell by the number of cultures that continue to use their script as an emblem (on printed invitations, on shop fronts, even on the national flag) long after most people have stopped using it for everyday purposes.” 

 “The One and The Many” is a 24-ton sculpted granite boulder by artist Peter Randall-Page inscribed with many of the world’s scripts and symbols. It includes Bassa Vah, an alphabet for writing the Bassa language of Liberia (highlighted in light grey), among many others, You can begin your own search into writing systems and their origins, or take a look at a list of languages the atlas needs help researching on their website, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed that 2019 would be the International Year of Indigenous Languages, the declaration’s goal was to raise awareness for disappearing language systems around the world, while mobilizing a coordinated global effort to help preserve them, I hope it succeeded, the loss of a language is a loss of culture to us all.