Writing and language rights

The VIEWS project

This post is specially written for Global Language Advocacy Day2023 (#GLAD23), an international day highlighting the importance and diversity of languages across the world. This year’s theme is “Language rights save lives” – in both literal and metaphorical senses.

One important strand of the VIEWS project involves using our research on early writing systems to help us understand why some traditions flourish while others die out – which has important ramifications for the modern day, where many of the world’s minority writing systems are in danger of being lost (as highlighted by our partners the Endangered Alphabets Red List project). This is what underpins our efforts to put together the VIEWS Endangered Writing Network, to contribute to protecting and/or revitalising such traditions.

There are many facets to this ongoing research, and the one I want to focus on today is the link between writing and language. As…

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THE AGE OF ARTHUR, PART TWENTY: EMPEROR ARTHUR

The Deadliest Blogger: Military History Page

Unique among the territories of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, Britain succeeded in holding back and even reversing the tide of Germanic conquest for nearly two centuries. This was an age of heroes… It was the Age of Arthur!

This is the twentieth-part of our discussion of Britain in the 5th though the mid-6th Century A.D. It is a fascinating period, with the Classical civilization of Greece and Rome giving way to the Germanic “Dark Ages”; the sunset of Celtic-Roman culture in Britain.

(Read Part Nineteen here. Or start from the beginning, with Part One!)

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The Battle of Mons Badonicus (Badon Hill) was over. The greatest army the Anglo-Saxon powers had ever gathered together, with the intent of once-and-for-all putting paid to their Romano-Celtic enemies in the west; which had marched under the standards of at least three Saxon kings (the Bretwalda, Ælle of the…

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The Lyre of Achilles

Homer, Iliad, 9.185-189. They came to the Myrmidon huts and ships And found Achilles happy-hearted with his clear-toned handsomely designed lyre with its silver bridge. He’d gotten it from the spoils of Etion’s sacked city. With it he cheered his heart when he sang of the fame of men. Μυρμιδόνων δʼ ἐπί τε κλισίας καὶ…

Source: The Lyre of Achilles

 

The Proud History of the Black Seminoles

The Americas Revealed

In the 1700s, they were called Mustees or Black Creeks. George Gist (Sequoyah) was actually the son of a Mustee mother (slave) from South Carolina and an AshkenaziJewish father (trader), but considered himself Cherokee. The Black Seminoles became the original Buffalo Soldiers. Coretta Scott King was another famous Mustee. Her Alabama family considered themselves Creek, until she married the Rev. Martin Luther King. Mustee families were also some of the original settlers of the Native American community, where my grandmother grew up, Ruckers Bottom, on the Savannah River in Georgia.

PART SIX

by Richard L. Thornton, Architect and City Planner

While studying the then hidden story of Native American slavery, Florida anthropologist John Worth came to the conclusion that at least 600,000 indigenous people in Southeastern North America had been abducted into slavery. Slave raiders typically only took with them young women and teenagers. The men, defending their families…

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Videos: Fact checking the Solutrean Hypothesis

The Americas Revealed

In its original form, the Solutrean Hypothesis states that during the Ice Age, humans traveled along the edge of the North Atlantic Ice Cap to populate sections of eastern North America. Their descendants interbred with peoples from Siberia to form modern Native American peoples. In particular, this theory was championed by the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC.

Part Ten of the Mesolithic Period in Eastern North America

by Richard L. Thornton, Architect and City Planner

The development of the Solutrean Hypothesis really began in the 1980s, as a result of the excavations near the Shenandoah River by my friend, archaeologist William Gardner. These excavations are described in videos on the Cactus Hill and Thunderbird Archaeological Sites (October 16, 2022). Bill discovered a large flint quarrying and knapping site for making Clovis points. These Clovis points were being used by a large resident population in the Coastal Plain. When Clovis point production…

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Introducing the Visual Interactions in Early Writing Systems (VIEWS)

This project sound truly exciting for anyone interested in forgotten languages. Thanks Pippa.

The VIEWS project

The VIEWS project – Visual Interactions in Early Writing Systems – started up this month, and I wanted to start off the new blog website with a post laying out the ideas behind and structure of the project. So if you want to know what we’ll be doing over the next five years, and what there might be to look forward to, read on! As you’ll see, our core research paves the way for some new adventures in early writing in the Mediterranean, Near East, North Africa and the Americas, and other aspects of the project go far beyond…

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The secret reason why actor Pernell Roberts was a civil rights activist

A beautiful Song by Pernell Roberts.

The Americas Revealed

This event is left out of official biographies. He could have become a Native American version of the Rev. Martin Luther King!

by Richard Thornton, Architect and City Planner

Pernell Roberts returned to live in Waycross, GA one last time during the late 1940s. What happened during that short, traumatic period of residence is either only described in vague terms to conceal the chronology or completely left out in most references, such as Wikipedia. These events occurred after flunking out of Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture and when his enlistment in the US Marine Corps was completed in 1948. His two year residence in Washington, DC as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps band had changed his world view.

There is one other strange parallel between Pernell’s youth and early manhood with my own. After graduating from Georgia Tech, I immediately traveled to Landskrona, Sweden to a job arranged…

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Something that every Native American should know about King Charles III

An exceptional story the British public should read.

The Americas Revealed

He is our Friend! We thought that the original manuscript of the Creek Migration Legend was lost somewhere in England in 1735. It described the journey of the Upper Creeks from the slopes of the Orizaba Volcano in southern Veracruz State, Mexico to the mountains of Georgia. Many scholars looked for it through the years and couldn’t find it. I would never have discovered it in 2015 without the direct assistance of HRH Prince Charles and his Asst. Private Secretary, Dr. Grahame Davies.

by Richard L. Thornton, Architect and City Planner

Excerpt of the first paragraph of Chikili’s speech in Savannah

Although North Americans normally only saw the former HRH Prince Charles in ceremonial settings, actually he has devoted much of his life, at a professional level, to historic preservation, urban design, agriculture and archaeology.

Did you know that . . . ?

• He has been the developer and prepared…

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Minos Kalokairinos: The Original Excavator of Knossos

Minoan Magissa

Sir Arthur Evans tends to be the first name that comes to mind when one thinks of Knossos and its initial discovery and excavation. However, the original excavator is less widely known. His name? Minos Kalokairinos (yes, Minos!), a so-called novice archeologist, businessman, lifelong student, and antiquarian. That being said, the first excavation of this ancient Cretan site took place in 1878, not 1900 (by a Cretan person no less).

^{Photo taken by Wikimedia Commons User Danbu14}

Minos Kalokairinos, The Palace of Minos: Mere Coincidence or Fate?

Not to get too poetic about it, but I do find it interesting that Minos shares the name of the legendary king Minos, which the Minoan civilization was named after (by Evans). Also, he was the first person to pin down the location of the Minoan ruler’s palace (also known as the Knossian Labyrinth)…

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The Minoans: The Ancestors of Modern Cretans 🧬

Minoan Magissa

Through the use of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis of dental remains, Greek and American researchers have made strides in pinpointing the connection between modern Cretans and the “Cretans” of long ago. While this was discovered in 2013, I only just came across this information recently. Two years prior to that fated day, when I was in Crete walking around Knossos, I half-jokingly asked my aunt if we can be related to the Minoans. “Όχι βέβαια” (Of course not), she replied with a chuckle. But as far as I knew, my maternal side was Cretan: my mom, my grandma, my great-grandma, my great-great grandma… you get the point. So, the idea was not too far-fetched, especially now with a scientific backing.

^{Photo from Minoan Theater}

Mitochondria and Maternal Ancestry

Mitochondria are the energetic powerhouses of cells, which are comprised of their own genetic code (DNA). mtDNA

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