Japan’s ‘Hentaigana’: The Lost Characters
Before Japanese script was standardized in 1900, writers used a vast and beautiful array of variant cursive characters known as 'hentaigana'. Born from the simplification of multiple Chinese characters for…
Unlocking the Universe of Languages
Before Japanese script was standardized in 1900, writers used a vast and beautiful array of variant cursive characters known as 'hentaigana'. Born from the simplification of multiple Chinese characters for…
Before the printing press, scribes used a secret code of symbols and shortcuts to write faster and save precious parchment. This lost art of scribal abbreviations, a kind of medieval…
The invention of the printing press was a revolution not just for knowledge, but for language itself. Before Gutenberg, language was a fluid, evolving entity, but the press acted as…
For nearly 400 years, the forty "immortals" of the Académie Française have stood as the official guardians of the French language. But in a modern world dominated by English loanwords…
The French language, renowned for its fluidity and musicality, is adorned with a variety of diacritical marks that contribute to its phonetic, etymological, and aesthetic...