Indonesia is home to more endangered alphabets than any other country, perhaps as many as 20. The cause is geopolitical convenience: when it became a new nation after World War II, Indonesia was an aggregation of so many islands with their own cultural and linguistic histories the government decided to adopt a single official language and a single official script. Schools abandoned the traditional scripts and within two generations the average Balinese-on-the-street could no longer read several centuries of writing, the accumulated documentation of an entire culture. This was my first carving of suksma, the Balinese word expressing gratitude; since then I have given a similar carving to anyone who has done me an act of unusual kindness.
In American cherry.
Dimensions: 16” x 10”
“Thank you” in Balinese
Tim Brookes was born in England and educated at Oxford before moving to the United States in 1980.
An editor, guitarist, teacher, soccer coach and author of 23 books and numerous articles and essays, he founded the Endangered Alphabets Project in 2010 with his first exhibition of carvings in indigenous and minority scripts.
Since then he has exhibited and spoken at more than 150 colleges, universities, libraries, museums, and galleries including The Barbican Center, West den Haag, Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, Harvard, the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress, while working with a wide range of cultures to create games and educational materials for learning and promoting minority scripts.
His latest books are An Atlas of Endangered Alphabets, Writing Beyond Writing: Lessons from Endangered Alphabets and By Hand: Can the Art of Writing Be Saved? The last book explores the importance of the act and the art of writing by hand—and was written by hand.
After 50 years in the US, he has just moved back to Cambridge, England, where he is delighted to be starting collaborations of all kinds with people from all walks of life.
All sales go toward the costs of running the Endangered Alphabets Project, which is not supported by any institution, agency or foundation and thus depends very heavily on sales of books and carvings.
For more information on this script, see the Atlas of Endangered Alphabets at endangeredalphabets.net.
Email: tim@endangeredalphabets.com
Website: endangeredalphabets.com
Instagram: @endangeredalphas