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Which country has the most written languages?

The answer may be India. India certainly has a large inventory of spoken languages, over 2000 (see note at bottom) at a conservative estimate, and a great many of them are languages with a written heritage. … Read More

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Numerals vs. Alphabets

 

Sometimes there is a technology that is just so good that it gets adopted nearly universally. Typically it is something that is disarmingly simple, but amazingly effective. There also has to be a mechanism for it to be shared. … Read More

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Why is Urdu almost always written in Nasta’liq, but Persian reserves it for poetry?

Nasta’liq is a style of writing the Arabic script, particularly the adapted version of the script sometimes called Perso-Arabic which is used to write Persian, Urdu, and formerly, Turkish. Developed in the 14th and 15th centuries during the … Read More

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Nushu: Chinese script only women could write

In 1988, Yi Nianhua, a woman in her 80s, spent many evenings scribbling elegant characters at a table in her kitchen in a small rice-farming village in Shangjiangxu, China. With only a blunt writing brush, the elongated script … Read More

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Miyaan Saraa

I am working to put my recent exhibit of new works online. It should be ready shortly!

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Oldest Written Record

Read Aditya Kabir's answer to What is the earliest recorded event in human history? on Quora

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Comics as Commentary exhibit opens at Sweetwater Print Cooperative this Friday, featuring work by myself and ten other cartoonists from Disney to now. This is a detail of a cartoon I did during my stint as commentary cartoonist (usually called “political cartoons”) for Moon Magazine in Gainesville, Florida. S. J. Thomas.

Comics as Commentary exhibit opens at Sweetwater Print Cooperative this Friday, featuring work by myself and ten other cartoonists from Disney to now. This is a detail of a cartoon I did during my stint as commentary cartoonist (usually called “political cartoons”) for Moon Magazine in Gainesville, Florida. S. J. Thomas.Read More

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FOREVER – 永 – yǒng – Chinese character: forever, always, perpetual. This character is formed by adding a dot and a horizontal line to the character 水 for water. Water on this planet is not made anew, it is forever, it cycles and cycles through our bodies, the bodies of all creatures and through the vast ecosystem that makes up our planet. Biologically, water is as close to forever as we experience. Calligraphy by S. J. Thomas www.palmstone.com

FOREVER – 永 – yǒng – Chinese character: forever, always, perpetual. This character is formed by adding a dot and a horizontal line to the character 水 for water. Water on this planet is not made anew, it is forever, it cycles and cycles through our bodies, the bodies of all creatures and through the vast ecosystem that makes up our planet. Biologically, water is as close to forever as we experience. Calligraphy by S. J. Thomas www.palmstone.comRead More

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Lion Zoomorphic Tattoo Design in Arabic Script. I’ve done quite a few variations of the lion’s head, each with a different set of words as the mane—usually people’s names that are important to the person commissioning the design. Here’s hoping we can preserve lions in the wild, and not just as inked art. Design by S. J. Thomas www.palmstone.com

Lion Zoomorphic Tattoo Design in Arabic Script. I’ve done quite a few variations of the lion’s head, each with a different set of words as the mane—usually people’s names that are important to the person commissioning the design. Here’s hoping we can preserve lions in the wild, and not just as inked art. Design by S. J. Thomas www.palmstone.comRead More

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