Is Cursive Better for Your Brain?
As schools increasingly drop cursive, we must ask: are we just losing an old-fashioned script, or are we sacrificing a powerful tool for cognitive development? Neurological research suggests the connected…
Tag: alphabet
LTR vs. RTL: The Direction of Writing Compared
Ever wondered why English is written left-to-right while Arabic is written right-to-left? This post explores the fascinating history behind the world's writing directions, from ancient chisels on stone to modern-day…
A Guide to Slavic Languages
** Dive into the fascinating world of Slavic languages, a family that connects over 300 million speakers from Prague to Vladivostok. This guide explores their common origins, the three major…
Reading: The Brain’s Heavy Lift
Ever wondered if learning thousands of Chinese characters is cognitively harder than mastering the English alphabet? This post dives into the neuroscience of reading, exploring the distinct brain pathways activated…
The Secret Marriage of Letters
Have you ever noticed how the letters 'f' and 'i' sometimes merge into a single, elegant character? This is a ligature, the secret marriage of letters, with a history stretching…
The Zip File’s Hidden Language
Ever wondered how a zip file shrinks data? The secret isn't just computer magic; it's a hidden language built on the same principles that shape human speech. This post reveals…
The QWERTY Problem: Typing in a Non-Latin World
How do you type a language with thousands of characters on a keyboard with only a few dozen keys? The ubiquitous QWERTY layout presents a fascinating challenge for non-Latin scripts,…
The Alphabet’s Fingerprint
Long before big data, a hidden pattern in our language served as a master key for both spies and scholars. This statistical "fingerprint"βthe predictable frequency of lettersβcould crack the toughest…
The Cognitive Cost of a Character
Is it harder for the brain to read Chinese characters than the English alphabet? This article explores the cognitive load of different writing systems, from logographic to alphabetic. We dive…
The Mechanical Mouth: A History of Speech Synthesis
From the bellows-powered talking heads of the 18th century to the neural networks that voice our smart assistants, the quest to create an artificial voice is a fascinating story of…
Glagolitic: The Lost Slavic Alphabet
Before the familiar Cyrillic script dominated Eastern Europe, there was another, more mysterious alphabet designed for the Slavic people. We uncover the story of Glagolitic, the ornate and beautiful alphabet…
How to Invent an Alphabet
Ever dreamed of creating your own alphabet? This guide delves into the art and science of script creation, exploring the cognitive principles that make a writing system successful. Learn the…
Arabizi: The Internet’s Hybrid Arabic Script
Arabizi is the internetβs hybrid Arabic script, an ingenious solution to typing Arabic sounds on Latin keyboards using numbers like '3' for 'ο»' and '7' for 'οΊ‘'. What began as…
The Emperor’s Alphabet: The Story of Phags-pa Script
In the 13th century, Kublai Khan commissioned a single, official script to unite the vast, multilingual Mongol Empire. The result was Phags-pa, a unique, vertically-written alphabet designed to write everything…
Reading Right-to-Left: How Scripts Shape the Brain
Does the direction you read in change how you perceive the world? This article delves into the surprising science of how writing systems like English, Arabic, and Hebrew physically shape…
The Alphabet That Failed
In the 1960s, a radical new alphabet for English was born, bankrolled by the will of playwright George Bernard Shaw. Designed to be perfectly logical and efficient, the Shavian alphabet…
The Geometry of God: Rules of Islamic Calligraphy
In Islamic art, the graceful curves of calligraphy are not a matter of artistic whim, but of sacred mathematics. This article explores the rule-governed system of *khatt*, where the width…
The Vai Script: A Dreamed-Up Alphabet
In the 1830s, an illiterate Vai man in West Africa named Momolu Duwalu Bukele had a vivid dream where he was shown a book of symbols. Inspired by this vision…
10 Endangered Scripts to Watch in 2025
Long before a language falls silent, its unique writing system can fade into obscurity. This post explores ten beautiful and endangered scripts, from the vertical Mongolian alphabet to the Philippines'…
Why Your Doctor’s Handwriting Is So Bad: A Study
We've all squinted at a doctor's prescription, wondering if it's a note or a secret code. But is this infamous scrawl merely a tired stereotype, or is it a unique…