Silent Writing

silent writing performance

PJATK publishing house

with Brody Neuenschwander

Warsaw, 2019

silent writing performance

with Brody Neuenschwander

silent writing performance

PJATK publishing house

with Brody Neuenschwander

Warsaw, 2019

silent writing performance with Brody Neuenschwander

Publishing house of Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology Koszykowa 86, 02–008 Warsaw (+48) 22 58 44 526 oficyna@pja.edu.pl sklep.pja.edu.pl © 2019 Publishing house of Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology [Polsko-Japońska Akademia Technik Komputerowych] All right reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or part without the express written permission of the publisher.

The publisher assumes no responsibility for subject matter contained in advertising.

Scientific editors

Dr hab. Ewa Satalecka Dr. Brody Neuenschwander

Book design and setting

Olga Kulish

Proofreading

Dr. Beata Czajkowska, Dr. David Skully The ZNACZY SIĘ New Art Foundation

Review

Dr hab. Agnieszka Małecka-Kwiatkowska, ASP Katowice Dr hab. Agata Bareja-Starzyńska, University of Warsaw

Font

Sneekpi – Maciej Połczyński Laïc: Type Foundry, www.laic.pl

Print

Drukarnia Akapit sp. z o.o. ul. Węglowa 3, 20-481 Lublin www.drukarniaakapit.pl

Edition

300 copies

ISBN 978-83-953724-4-5

Silent Writing performance (January, 2019) was organised by Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in cooperation with Warsaw Public Library – Central Library of Masovian Voivodeship and Warsaw Calligraphy House Idea and creation Curators

Brody Neuenschwander Monika Marek–Łucka Olga Kulish

19.01.2019 Warsaw Public Library 17.10.2019 The Asia and Pacific Museum

On January 19, 2019 an extraordinary event took place at the Warsaw Public Library (Biblioteka Publiczna m. st. Warszawy).

The central reading room was filled with calligraphers from many countries and cultures around the world, all writing in their native script.

19 stycznia 2019, przy stołach zabytkowej czytelni Biblioteki Publicznej m. st. Warszawy zasiedli kaligrafowie reprezentujący bogactwo pism świata. W półmroku rozświetlanym przez punktowe lampy i w zupełnej ciszy, pomiędzy stołami przechadzali się widzowie.

The Reading Room was in darkness and complete silence, with only the desks of the calligraphers lit by spotlights. Visitors wandered from desk to desk, weaving their way from the intricate lines of fine copperplate calligraphy to the open brushwork of Chinese calligraphy, from the solid lines and balanced geometry of Cyrillic to the free movement of contemporary expressive writing.

Odwiedzający mogli podziwiać zawiłe linie, ażury znaków, zrównoważoną geometrię różnych skryptów i stylów zapisu.

This project is the brainchild of calligrapher Brody Neuenschwander, who has been researching the history and diversity of writing for many years.

The performance attracted a great deal of interest and was repeated on October 17, 2019 at The Asia and Pacific Museum as an event accompanying the exhibition "Słowa nieulotne – pisma w kulturach świata".

During 14–18.10.2019 Brody Neuenschwander led a workshop dedicated to calligraphy on fabric and gave an open lecture on the history of writing in human culture. These events were organized and hosted by the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology and The Asia and Pacific Museum.

Photographic and film documentation of these events, as well as an interview with the artist, can be found on academy's website and PJATK YouTube channel: www.pja.edu.pl/en/news/galeria-silent-writing-performance www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDo_iaUg54c We are what we write, and if we write together we live together.

Let yourself be amazed by the beauty of the world’s calligraphy. curators Monika Marek–Łucka, Olga Kulish

Performance zainicjował światowej klasy kaligraf — Brody Neuenschwander, który od lat bada historię i różnorodność pism.

Cieszący się dużym zainteresowaniem spektakl został powtórzony 17 października 2019 w Muzeum Azji i Pacyfiku, jako wydarzenie towarzyszące wystawie “Słowa nieulotne – pisma w kulturach świata”.

W ramach rezydencji współorganizowanej przez PolskoJapońską Akademię Technik Komputerowych i Muzeum Azji i Pacyfiku w dniach 14–18.10.2019 Brody Neuenschwander poprowadził warsztaty kaligrafii na tkaninie i dał otwarty wykład poświęcony historii pisma w kulturze ludzkiej.

Dokumentację fotograficzną i filmową tych wydarzeń oraz wywiad z artystą można znaleźć na stronach uczelni: www.pja.edu.pl/en/news/galeria-silent-writing-performance www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDo_iaUg54c Piszmy razem. Żyjmy razem.

Zachwycajmy się pięknem wspólnej, ludzkiej kultury. kuratorki Monika Marek–Łucka, Olga Kulish

The Joy of Writing Wisława Szymborska

Why does this writ­ten doe bo­und thro­u gh the­s e writ­ten wo­o ds?

For a drink of writ­ten wa­ter from a spring who­s e sur­f a­ce will xe­rox her soft muz­zle?

Why does she lift her head; does she hear so­m e­t hing?

Per­ched on four slim legs bor­ro­wed from the truth, she pricks up her ears be­n e­a th my fin­g er­t ips.

Si­len­ce – this word also ru­s tles across the page and parts the bo­u ghs that have spro­u ted from the word “wo­o ds.”

Ly­ing in wait, set to po­un­ce on the blank page, are let­ters up to no good, clut­ches of clau­s es so sub­or­d i­na­te they'll ne­ver let her get away.

Each drop of ink con­t a­ins a fair sup­p ly of hun­ters, equ­ip­p ed with squ­in­t ing eyes be­h ind the­ir si­g hts, pre­p a­red to swarm the slo­p ing pen at any mo­m ent, sur­ro­und the doe, and slow­ly aim the­ir guns.

They for­g et that what's here isn't life.

Other laws, black on whi­te, ob­t a­in.

The twin­k ling of an eye will take as long as I say, and will, if I wish, di­v i­d e into tiny eter­n i­t ies, full of bul­lets stop­p ed in mid-fli­g ht.

Not a thing will ever hap­p en unless I say so.

Wi­t ho­u t my bles­s ing, not a leaf will fall, not a bla­d e of grass will bend be­n e­a th that lit­t le hoof’s full stop.

Is the­re then a world whe­re I rule ab­s o­l u­te­ly on fate?

A time I bind with cha­ins of si­g ns?

An exi­s ten­ce be­co­m e en­d less at my bid­d ing?

The joy of wri­t ing.

The po­wer of pre­s e­r ving.

Re­ven­g e of a mor­t al hand.

Ra­dość pi­s a­nia Wisława Szymborska

Do­k ąd bie­g nie ta na­p i­s a­na sar­na przez na­p i­s a­ny las?

Czy z na­p i­s a­n ej wody pić, któ­ra jej pysz­c zek od­b i­j e jak kal­k a?

Dla­c ze­g o łeb pod­n o­s i, czy coś sły­s zy?

Na po­ż y­c zo­nych z praw­d y czte­rech nóż­k ach wspar ­t a spod mo­i ch pal­ców uchem strzy­że.

Ci­s za – ten wy­raz tez sze­le­ś ci po pa­p ie­r ze i roz­gar­n ia spo­wo­d o­w a­n e sło­wem “las” ga­łę­z ie.

Nad bia­łą kart­k ą cza­ją się do sko­k u li­te­r y, któ­re mogą uło­ż yć się źle, zda­n ia osa­c za­ją­ce, przed któ­r y­m i nie bę­d zie ra­t un­k u.

Jest w kro­p li atra­m en­t u spo­r y za­p as my­ś li­w ych z przy­mru­żo­nym okiem, go­to­w ych zbiec po stro­mym pió­r ze w dół, oto­c zyć sar­n ę, zło­ż yć się do strza­ł u.

Za­p o­m i­na­ją, że tu nie jest ży­cie.

Inne, czar­n o na bia­ł ym, pa­n u­ją tu pra­w a.

Oka­m gnie­n ie trwać bę­d zie tak dłu­g o, jak ze­chcę, po­z wo­l i się po­d zie­l ić na małe wiecz­n o­ś ci peł­n e wstrzy­ma­nych w lo­cie kul.

Na za­w sze, je­sli każę, nic się tu nie sta­n ie.

Bez mo­j ej woli na­wet liść nie spad­n ie ani źdźbło się nie ugnie pod krop­k ą ko­pyt­k a.

Jest więc taki świat, nad którym los spra­w u­j e nie­z a­leż­ny?

Czas, który wią­że łań­cu­cha­m i zna­ków?

Ist­n ie­n ie na mój roz­k az nie­u stan­n e?

Ra­d ość pi­s a­n ia.

Moż­n ość utrwa­l a­n ia.

Ze­msta ręki śmier­tel­n ej.

Contents

14 About Brody Neuenschwander 16 Introduction 20 28 62 78 90 100 106 112 118

Silent Writing performance Latin Cyrillic Chinese Hebrew Arabic Korean Devanagari Japanese

127 Acknowledgements 129 Credits

14—15

Brody Neuenschwander

About Brody Neuenschwander

Brody Neuenschwander is a calligrapher and text artist who works in a wide variety of media, from paper, canvas and collage to glass, metal, textiles and ceramics.

He has collaborated for nearly 30 years with the British filmmaker Peter Greenaway and in recent years has moved into performance and installation pieces.

Neuenschwander is currently making a three-part documentary for Arte, PBS and the BBC on the history and future of writing, seen from a global perspective.

During 2014–2019 Brody Neuenschwander led several workshops and lectures for students of the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology (PJATK) in Warsaw. In 2019 he was invited by PJATK and The Asia and Pacific Museum to exhibit his calligraphy in a museum space.

16—17

Introduction Brody Neuenschwander Bruges, 2019

We all write, or at least we have all learned to write. All over the world children are taught from an early age to shape letters with pencils and pens; or to form characters with a pointed brush and ink. Writing is considered to be one of the foundations of civilization and the basis of civil society.

We write to communicate with each other, to pass on ideas to future generations and to develop our own minds and spirits.

But we write much less than we used to. The keyboard has replaced the pen. We may learn to write with pen and paper as children, but most of us have moved on to other technologies and rarely pick up a pen or brush.

This technological shift is having profound consequences on societies around the world. Recent studies have shown that most Chinese can no longer write many basic characters. They can read them and, by typing them into their computers and phones in pinyin (Latin letter spelling of Chinese) can conjure them from their devices. But asked to write a character that they use every day, they are often unable to complete the task. We see a similar situation in cultures that use alphabets.

Children now spend much less time learning to write properly and often have such poor handwriting that teachers prefer essays and homework to be typed and printed out.

18—19

This all may seem an unavoidable and quite natural technological evolution. And indeed, it does not look like we will be able to reverse these trends in the near future.

It is not a priority for many people, even for many teachers.

The fine motor skills that were gained along the way are now replaced by other motor skills, perhaps less fine but adequate to type on the minute keys of a smartphone.

So it is fair to ask, what is writing in the 21st century? Is it another ancient craft that will go the way of hand-weaving, turning pots on a wheel, making paper by hand? In other words, will handwriting be relegated to hobby status? This would seem to be the case for calligraphy in the West. In China and Japan the importance of calligraphy as a historical art form means that it cannot, for the present, be categorized as a mere hobby, with the pejorative sense that this word often has.

But if we do not need to write, then why should we do so?

Neuroscientists will answer this question one way, teachers another, calligraphers yet another. The scientists point to studies that clearly show that learning is more efficient and profound when notes and ideas are recorded by hand rather than on a keyboard. In other words, if you write, you learn better. The science here is undeniable. Teachers who still understand how to teach handwriting properly state in no uncertain terms that children and older students can organize their thoughts better if they put them down on paper with a pen. They give physical form to letters and to the page and thereby create mind maps that help them to structure their thoughts. And as for the calligraphers, it is obvious that they will claim a great role for handwriting and its elegant

sister calligraphy. They know that making beautiful letters is a joy in itself. But they know more than that. Through long experience, calligraphers recognize their art form as a supremely efficient way of learning design skills, of building a sense of proportional judgment and of calming the soul in order to go deeper into a text, into the meaning of language.

Silent Writing is a meditation in ink that allows the public to see the many meanings and values of beautiful writing. It brings together calligraphers from many different cultures, all in silence, who write in their own scripts, using traditional tools. The public has the golden opportunity to move among the calligraphers and look silently over their shoulders. It is hypnotic to see the brush form Chinese characters, to watch a wide pen make fine rows of Hebrew letters, to enjoy the sweep of a reed pen as it creates wave upon wave of Arabic letters.

From the very first performance of Silent Writing in Bruges in 2002 the most astonishing thing has been the deeper meaning of the event. And this meaning was sensed by the public before I was able to grasp it. The event clearly communicates

a beautiful atmosphere of respect, tolerance and reverence for all cultures by all cultures. This was not the intention when we started this event, which in the intervening years has become global. It was an unexpected side-effect, but one for which I am profoundly grateful. Calligraphy can mean this: my identity is connected to the way I communicate. And yours to the way you communicate. For each of us, calligraphy is the finest, most beautiful way we communicate with words, with language, with writing. And so by coming together to write, each in her/his own script, we show the universal richness and humanity hidden deep inside writing in all its forms.

Silent Writing is very relevant to the world we live in today. The only way forward for humanity is mutual respect and tolerance. Silent Writing symbolizes this and can contribute to better understanding among cultures.

20—21

22—23

24—25

The process of calligraphic creation

26—PB

27—PB

28—29

Latin

Latin script, together with Chinese, Arabic, Devanagari and Cyrillic, is the most widespread writing system in the world today, with approximately six billion users. It is used on every continent and is learned by most people as a second if not as a first script. The twenty-six signs of the Latin alphabet represent the smallest units of speech – both consonants and vowels. They originated in the Etruscan alphabet, which was borrowed by the Romans around the 7 th century BC, and which in turn came from the western version of the Greek alphabet.

Before it arrived at its current form, the Latin alphabet went through a centuries-long evolution that might be surprising to those who only know its modern version.

At first the system consisted of 21 signs, all capitals:

A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X After the Roman conquest of Greece, many aspects of Greek culture, including Greek vocabulary, infiltrated Latin, requiring the Romans to incorporate two letters representing sounds present in Greek but not in Latin, the /z/ and the /y/. As the Latin alphabet spread to other European nations after the fall of Rome, this process was repeated. The double V was used to mark the sound /w/ in Germanic languages and with time it became the separate letter W. From the 16th century CE /v/ and /u/ could no longer be used interchangeably to represent the Latin V; the two signs separated to become distinct letters. The letter J was the last to join the corpus – initially used as a swash character at the end of a word, in the 17th century it received the status of a separate letter, first in England and then, two centuries later, universally. It was not until the 19th century that the basic set of Latin letters used today was established.

It is important to keep in mind that there is no one, fixed Latin alphabet: for almost every language using Latin letters some adjustments have been made. We should, to be more accurate, speak about English, Spanish, Polish, Vietnamese etc. alphabets.

All these versions of Latin script have added diacriticals to suit their needs; and in different languages one sign can stand for different sounds. To give just one example: the J in Spanish stands for /h/, while in English it stands for /d ʒ /.

No less dramatic have been the changes throughout the centuries to the outward form of 26 letters. Initially, the system consisted of only capital letters called majuscule. As writing was a relatively common practice in the Rome Empire, in handwriting and even some public inscriptions, a less canonical, cursive style evolved, the minuscule, also called “small” letters.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire many “national hands”

evolved, mixing in unpredictable ways elements taken from the majuscule and minuscule scripts: the Italian semi-cursive minuscule, the Merovingian script in France, the Anglo-Irish “insular” hand, and several others. Even within one region one could find many different scripts. Indeed, monasteries such as Luxeuil and Monte Casino developed their unique styles. Monasteries remained the main centers for copying books between the fall of Rome and the 13th century. In the 8th century, as a result of an educational reform carried out

by Charlemagne, the Carolingian minuscule was developed and spread throughout Europe. Over the next two centuries it became the default book hand for most of Europe. The unity of scripts instigated by Charlemagne was not to last. From the 12th century on, North and South evolved in different directions. By the 15th century two distinguished styles emerged, the rounded Gothic of Italy and the compressed, angular Gothic of the North.

This duality corresponded with a more general discrepancy on political, ideological and social levels.

With the dawn of the Renaissance in Italy, classical Roman letters once again became the inspiration for a new script reflecting the spirit of the age. The humanist script – Antiqua – consists of small letters inspired by the Carolingian minuscule and capital letters taken from the classical Roman alphabet.

It was used for both secular and religious purposes but was particularly favored for copying antique texts – philosophical and scientific treatises, poems and theatrical plays. Books written in the new Renaissance style breathed a spirit of openness and declared the end of the medieval order. In the North, the Gothic blackletter was not subject to similar reforms and passed into print under the press of Gutenberg. The dense, vertical Northern Gothic Textura has almost no curved lines, making it difficult to read to our eyes. The Italians did not follow Gutenberg’s example when they cut their own type punches. Their humanist letters, drawn with a thinner pen and lighter touch had rounder forms and more delicate serifs. It was this script that, following the Carolingian reforms nearly seven centuries earlier, became the default style for almost all modern typefaces and standards of legibility.

Aleksandra Twardokęs, University of Warsaw

30—31

English

Never did the sand quite cover the shrine at the edge of the desert, just beyond the last streets of Samarkand Never was the blue dome entirely gone from sight And yet the memory of your touch faded

32—33

English

There is no time There is no place There is no reason

I believe I try to believe I do not believe You believe you try to believe You do not believe They believe they try to believe they do not believe

I am here, you are there I am near, you are far, I look for you You turn to find me And I search for the meaning of your words

34—35 English

English

36—37

God’s Grandeur excerpt The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out like shining from shook foil It gathers to a greatness like the ooze of oil crushed Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Why do men then now not reck his rod. Generations have trod have trod have trod And all is smeared with trade, is bleared smeared with toil, and wears man’s smell...

God’s Grandeur excerpt

38—39 English

English

40—41

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

Samuel Beckett

42—43

Polish

You can differ, you can argue. But you must not hate each other.

Tadeusz Mazowiecki

44—45

Polish

Latin

46—47

Song of Solomon chapter 1 1 The song of songs, which is Solomon’s.

2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.

3 Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee.

4 Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee.

5 I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.

6 Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.

Latin

48—49

Song of Solomon chapter 1 7 Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?

8 If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents.

9 I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots.

10 Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold.

11 We will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver.

12 While the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof.

13 A bundle of myrrh is my wellbeloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.

English

50—51

Reading functions due to convention: the knowledge shared by readers of a particular script, the generally accepted forms of letters and other typographic signs. This know-how, embedded in the brain, makes reading into a custom – close to an automatism – and ensures that readers have no difficulties in processing letters and lines of a text while concentrating on its content. Typefaces that are considered to be conventional may differ in basic shapes and details, but they can all be read effortlessly. This makes convention a powerful and challenging ingredient in type design: you can accept it or rebel against it, but it is impossible to ignore it. Type designers who are aware of typographic convention can negotiate it and choose to stay close to the centre or to go near the edge. A generous amount of conventionality in a type design allows for quick and easy decoding of typeset language. How does this work?

For the recognition of letterforms two models have been proposed: template matching and feature detection. For template matching we should have stored in our brains complete representations of every variation of all typographic signs, and an incoming signal would be compared with all the templates, which makes this model unwieldy. Feature detection seems to be more efficient, involving the recognition of signs by detecting salient details and making quick comparisons. This is the model preferred by researchers, and it suggests that parts of letters are what matters during reading. What do these parts look like? Where and how are they processed in our brains?

Gerard Unger, Theory of Type Design

52—53

Polish

Catechism of the Polish emigrant Who are you?

A free man.

What’s your yearning?

Being capable.

Of what virtue?

To respect and inner truth cultivate.

Have you strength?

I have knowledge.

What about your homeland?

I’ll explore if I return.

Karol Pazola London, July 1, 2016

William Blake

Then every man, of every clime...

For Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face, And Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love Is God, our father dear, And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love Is Man, his child and care.

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love All pray in their distress; And to these virtues of delight Return their thankfulness.

The Divine Image excerpt

54—55 Polish

56—57

Turkish

Happiness always seems small when you hold it in your hands. But once you lose it, you will immediately understand how huge and beautiful it is.

58—59

60—61

62—63

Cyrillic

The Cyrillic alphabet is one of the most widespread writing systems of the world, with a total number of users of around 270 million worldwide (mainly in Eurasia). Since its invention it has been used to write more than 60 languages. Cyrillic derived from the Greek uncial script used between the 4th and 8 th centuries CE and initially consisted of 43 letters. Originally invented to record the language most commonly known as Old-Church-Slavic (a South Slavic dialect of the area around today’s Thessaloniki in Greece), it needed a few more letters for sounds non-existent in Greek. As the pronunciation of letter Ββ in Greek was already /v/, another variant of the same letter was adopted to record the sound /b/. Other additional letters were inherited from Cyrillic’s sister script, Glagolitic, which was created according to legend by St. Constantine the Philosopher (Cyril) and St. Methodius, who were sent by the Byzantine emperor to convert Great Moravia at the request of the Moravian ruler Rastislav.

Cyrillic was named in honour of its inventors, Saints CyrilConstantine and Methodius, by their disciples working in the Preslav Literary School under Tsar Boris I of the Bulgarian Empire. Some scholars still debate which script was first, although the material evidence is quite clear in this regard.

Nevertheless, Cyrillic appeared soon after the Glagolitic script.

The Cyrillic script has 3 basic forms: the oldest is called Ustav (official writing in codices), used mostly between the 11 th and 15th centuries CE, semi-Ustav (also artistic form) developed by southern Slavs and cursive form. The first two are still used in religious books of the Orthodox Church.

An important finding was made in 1951 in Novgorod, Russia – a birch bark letter written in Cyrillic, recording an Ancient Novgorodian dialect of the 11–15th centuries CE. Since then, more than a thousand letters were discovered around this area showing a vernacular use of this script as opposed to all other sources in official context.

The writing did not stay the same throughout the years. As Old Church-Slavic became an archaic language and drifted far from the spoken one, some reforms were necessary. The biggest reform for Russian Cyrillic was conducted by the Tsar Peter the Great in 1708. The obsolete letters or ones which denoted the same sound as others were abandoned, while new simplified fonts were designed. The new writing was called grazhdansky shrift (grazhdanka), which means “Civil Script,” as opposed to

script used by the church. It is said that the Tsar personally chose the new letter Я for sound /ya/. The second reform, prepared by the renowned scholar A. Shakhmatov, came with the October Revolution of 1917, which abolished three more archaic and obsolete letters. Since then, Russian Cyrillic script has remained unchanged. Letter Ё /yo/ was first proposed around 1795 by the Russian poet N. Karamzin but officially adopted only in 1943 by the Soviet authorities. Its use is optional and the two dots above the letter are often omitted but can appear in handbooks for children to show better the pronunciation of words.

In 1818, Vuk Stefanović Karadžić published his “Serbian Dictionary” using the reformed Serbian Cyrillic script. His proposals were accepted by Serbian institutions in 1868. He rejected 19 letters of original Cyrillic and introduced six new ones: J borrowed from Latin and five newly created letters: Љљ (‘lje’, Lj lj), Њњ (‘nje’ Nj nj), Џџ (‘dzhe’, Dž dž), Ђђ (‘dje’, Đ đ), Ћћ (‘tshe’, Ćć).

The most recent changes occurred in Montenegro in 2009 when the government officially introduced two new letters in Cyrillic С́ (‘sje’, Ś) and З́ (‘zje’, Ź).

There are also other languages that abandoned Cyrillic script, first of which was Romanian in 1863 and following its example Moldovan(1989), Azerbaijani (1991), Turkmen (1994), Uzbek (1998) and most recently Kazakh, which is scheduled to switch to Latin script till 2025. However, in the case of the Turkmen and Uzbek, peoples refused to change their writing completely and Cyrillic is still in everyday use. In Uzbekistan, the reform was not even fully implemented. The Kazakh reform (Qazaq in the new alphabet) is facing the same challenges. Those changes are not prompted by any problems with the script but rather by the rise of nationalism and political and cultural factors, such as bringing a given language closer to other related languages, and because of Russian dominance which the Cyrillic script is associated with. Łukasz Byrski, Jagiellonian University

Swan, Pike and Crawfish, Ivan Krylov

Now, which of them was most to blame, ’Tis not for me to say; But this I know: the load is there Unto this very day.

One day a swan, a pike, a crab, Resolved a load to haul; All three were harnessed to the cart, And pulled together all.

But though they pulled with all their might, The cart-load on the bank stuck tight.

The swan pulled upward to the skies; The crab did backward crawl; The pike made for the water straight — It proved no use at all!

Whene'er companions don't agree, They work without accord; And naught but trouble doth result, Although they all work hard.

64—65 Russian

66—67

Kazakh

Word forty-five* Abai Kunanbaev, Book of words

* The translation of the poem is available in Abai. Book of words [Text] / Eng. trans. by Richard McKane. Semey, 2003

68—69

Kazakh

70—71

vyaz

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.

Amen.

72—73

Russian

Listen! excerpt Now, listen, Surely, if the stars are lit there's somebody who longs for them, somebody who wants them to shine a bit, somebody who calls it, that wee speck of spittle, a gem?

And overridden by blizzards of midday dust, tears in to God‌ Vladimir Mayakovsky, 1914

74—75

76—77

78—79

Chinese

The Chinese script is the oldest continuously used writing system in the world, with over three millennia of archeologically attested, unbroken evolutionary progression from the Shāng 商 period to modern Chinese writing. The graphic form of the characters has undergone considerable change, but the operating principles and structure of the script have remained largely unaltered throughout its history. As a member of the logographic category of scripts, Chinese characters graphically represent meaning, as well as pronunciation, of the words they stand for. This can be illustrated by the following examples: the word mù ‘tree’ is represented by the simple graph 木 , which derives from the graphic depiction of a tree. The homophonous (similar sounding) word mù ‘to bathe, to cleanse’ is represented by the compound graph 沐, which contains the semantic component 氵‘water’ and the phonetic component 木 mù. Such phonosemantic compound graphs constitute the vast majority of Chinese characters currently in use. However, compound graphs can also consist of two or more semantic components, just like the characters 林 lín and 森 sēn, both meaning ‘forest’.

The earliest attested instance of the Chinese script, the oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions from the late Shāng period, date to c. 1200 BCE. Script-bearing objects from later periods include a variety of bronze artifacts (mainly ritual vessels), bamboo and wooden slips (the earliest form of a book in Chinese material culture), stone inscriptions and texts written on silk. The archaic Chinese writing of the pre-imperial era (before 221 BCE) was also collectively known as the Great Seal Script (大篆 dàzhuàn).

When the western state of Qín 秦 conquered other warring states and unified China in 221 BCE, a form of Chinese writing used in Qín was elevated to the nationwide level. Because of its widespread and continuous usage in official contexts such as seals, it was later called the Small Seal Script (小篆 xiǎozhuàn). Generally seen as the last stage of archaic Chinese writing, Small Seal Script is still practiced in China as a popular calligraphic style. The unofficial or “vulgar” counterpart of the Small Seal Script was the so-called clerical script (隸書 lìshū), which was developed during the Western Hàn 漢 dynasty (206 BC – 9 CE). The form of the characters in the clerical script was often subject to radical alterations and simplifications as compared to corresponding earlier forms; a further distinguishing feature of the clerical script is the rectangular layout of the character.

The cursive script (草書 cǎoshū) emerged at roughly the same time. Initially employed in judicial contexts as a form of shorthand, the cursive script has since become a diverse and widely practiced calligraphic style, artistically valued for its dynamic and unrestrained quality. The lines of the characters written in cursive are abbreviated and merged, often to the degree of rendering them illegible to a reader unfamiliar with this specific form of writing. The semi-cursive script ( 行書 xíngshū, lit. “running script”) was a cursory form of clerical script, less abbreviated and more conservative than cursive. The Jìn 晉 dynasty (265–420 CE) is often considered the peak of the development of the semi-cursive script, with some of the bestknown works of Chinese calligraphy written in this style – such as the ones of a particularly renowned calligrapher Wáng Xīzhī 王羲之 .

Commonly regarded as the last stage of the development of Chinese writing, the regular script (楷書 kǎishū) was formed on the basis of the early cursive and semi-cursive scripts, achieving maturity and currency during the early period of Táng 唐 dynasty (618–907). It has since become the standard form of Chinese characters, serving also as the basis for different fonts developed upon the advent of print.

Marian Olech, National Chengchi University

It is the ninth year of Emperor Mu of Jin's Yonghe era, The year of the Yin Water Ox, At the beginning of the third lunar month, We are all gathered at the orchid pavilion in Shanyin County, Guiji Commandery, For the Spring Purification Festival.

All of the prominent people have arrived, From old to young.

This is an area of high mountains and lofty peaks, With an exuberant growth of trees and bamboos, It also has clear rushing water, Reflecting the sunlight as it flows past either side of the pavilion.

The guests are seated side by side to play the drinking game where a wine cup is floated down the stream and the first person sitting in front of the cup when it stops must drink.

Although we lack the boisterousness of a live orchestra, With a cup of wine here and a reciting of poetry there, it is sufficient to allow for a pleasant exchange of cordial conversations.

Today, the sky is bright and the air is clear, With a gentle breeze that is blowing freely.

When looking up, one can see the vastness of the heavens, And when looking down, one can observe the abundance of things.

The contentment of allowing one’s eyes to wander, Is enough to reach the heights of delight for the sight and sound.

What a joy.

Now all people live in this world together, Some will take all of their aspirations, and share them in private with a friend; Still others will abandon themselves to reckless pursuits.

Even though everyone makes different choices in life, some thoughtful and some rash, Wang Xizhi, Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion

When a person meets with joy, he will temporarily be pleased, And will feel content, but he is not mindful that old age will soon overtake him.

Wait until that person becomes weary, or has a change of heart about something, And will thus be filled with regrets.

The happiness of the past, in the blink of an eye, Will have already become a distant memory, and this cannot but cause one to sigh; In any case, the length of a man’s life is determined by the Creator, and we will all turn to dust in the end.

The ancients have said, "Birth and Death are both momentous occasions."

Isn’t that sad!

Every time I consider the reasons for why the people of old had regrets, I am always moved to sadness by their writings, And I can not explain why I am saddened.

I most certainly know that it is false and absurd to treat life and death as one and the same, And it is equally absurd to think of dying at an old age as being the same as dying at a young age.

When future generations look back to my time, it will probably be similar to how I now think of the past.

What a shame! Therefore, when I list out the people that were here, And record their musings, even though times and circumstances will change, As for the things that we regret, they are the same.

For the people who read this in future generations, perhaps you will likewise be moved by these words.

80—81 Chinese

82—83

Chinese

When everyone in the world sees beauty, Then ugly exists.

When everyone sees good, Then bad exists.

Therefore: What is and what is not create each other.

Difficult and easy complement each other.

Tall and short shape each other.

High and low rest on each other.

Voice and tone blend with each other.

First and last follow each other.

84—85

You have to reflect on yourself many times every day: Have you tried your best to do things for others? Is there any integrity in dealing with friends?

Did the knowledge taught by the teacher review on time?

Chinese

There is a saying that can be pursued for life, that is, “forgiveness,� if you do not want something you do not impose on others.

Chinese

86—87

Chiang Tsun The sunset reddens o'er the lofty peak.

The sun steps down the level plain to seek.

The sparrows twitter on the wicker door— Home!—yet so many miles have left me weak.

My wife and children start to see me here.

Surprise scarce vanquished wipes a furtive tear: To think that swept by anarchy away Yet Chance returns me to each bosom dear.

The garden wall with neighbors' heads is lined.

Each breast surcharging breaks in sighings kind All night beside the candle's beam we sit, As though in dreams and absence still we pined.

Du Fu

88—89

90—91

Hebrew

The Hebrew alphabet is a consonantal script used to record Hebrew (Biblical and modern) as well as other languages used by the Jewish diaspora (Yiddish). It derived from the Aramaic alphabet.

The Hebrew language and alphabet are associated traditionally with Judaism – the Torah, as well as other religious texts written in Hebrew. Some of the sacred texts can be written down exclusively by qualified scribes (Heb. sofer, pl. soferim).

They copy scrolls according to a centuries-old tradition, using certain materials and a script called aszuri. Soferim also write other important documents, such as divorce letters or wedding contracts, although it is not required by law.

The Hebrew alphabet is written from right to left.

It consists of 22 consonant characters:

‫א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ‬ ‫ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת‬

Vowels are marked almost exclusively when the correct pronunciation is particularly important – religious texts, children's books and textbooks and situations in which two words have the same consonantal structure but are pronounced differently and have a different meaning.

Formally, in the Hebrew language, long and short vowels are distinguished. However, vowel length does not influence meaning of words in current practice. The vocalization is recorded using diacritical signs (Heb. Nikud) placed under, above or next to a letter. Additionally, four consonants of the Hebrew alphabet – alef, jud, waw and he, called matres lectionis, in some cases are written to indicate a pronunciation as a long vowel rather than a consonant.

Capital and small letters are not distinguished. Letters in words do not combine, so they have always the same graphic form at the beginning, the middle or the end of the word. The exception is five consonants – kaf [ ‫]ך כ‬, mem [‫]ם מ‬, nun [‫]ן נ‬, pe [‫פ‬ ‫ ]ף‬and cadi [ ‫] ץ צ‬, which have also an additional final form (Heb. sofit). Printed letters differ quite significantly from their handwritten versions.

In the past, letters of the Hebrew alphabet were also used to write numbers. Until now, each letter has kept a specific numerical value. Hebrew numerology – Gematria – is based on the alphabet as a system of signs. Interpretation of values and meanings assigned to letters is an essential part of Kabbalah (esoteric, mystical discipline within Judaic tradition).

In modern Hebrew, three letters can be written with an apostrophe, changing their pronunciation. An apostrophe in zajn [ ‫ ] ז‬changes the pronunciation from /z/ to /ż/, in cadi [ ‫– ]צ‬ from /c/ to /cz/, and in gimel [‫ ]ג‬from /g/ to /j/. Letters with an apostrophe are used mainly to write names and words of foreign origin.

Pola Zygmunt, The Asia and Pacific Museum

92—93

Hebrew

4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: 5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

8 And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.

9 And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

94—95

Hebrew

Song of Solomon chapter 1 1 The song of songs, which is Solomon's.

2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.

3 Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee.

4 Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee.

5 I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.

6 Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.

7 Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?

8 If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents.

9 I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots.

10 Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold.

11 We will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver.

12 While the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof.

13 A bundle of myrrh is my wellbeloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.

14 My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi.

Hebrew

96—97

Shalom Aleichem Peace unto you, ministerial angels, messengers of [the] Highest, from the King, king of the kings — the Holy, blessed be He. May your coming be to peace, envoys of the peace, messengers of the Highest, from the King, king of the kings — the Holy, blessed be He. Bless me for peace, envoys of the peace, messengers of the Highest, from the King, king of the kings — the Holy, blessed be He. May your departure be to peace, envoys of the peace, messengers of the Highest, from the King, king of the kings — the Holy, blessed be He.

98—99

100—101

Arabic

The Arabic alphabet is a consonantal script (abjad) used to record Arabic language. The direction of writing in the Arabic system is right to left.

There are many hypotheses regarding the origin of Arabic script.

The most common one states that it derives directly from the Nabataean alphabet. However, due to a gradual transformation of the Nabataean alphabet through the centuries, it is difficult to point out a precise moment when the Arabic script developed.

As early as the 7th century CE, when Islam appeared, the Arabic language and its dialects were recorded in a written form. Nevertheless, there were no official language standards for Arabic. Islamic religion had influenced significantly the development both of language and script. The Koran was written in Arabic. Consequently, Arabic became the language of the holy book, and all other religious texts. Arabic was also used as the main language of administration – the first Muslims developed a community, which required efficient management.

In the first centuries of Islam, the earliest calligraphic styles began to emerge. One of them was the Kufic style (from Al-Kufa, a city located in today’s Iraq), characterized by a geometric, sharp form and used mainly to write texts of special importance or monumental inscriptions.

A less decorative but faster style was used for the preparation of everyday notes and less important documents. This simplified script used by officials was described and codified by Ali Ibn Mukla – probably the best known of Muslim calligraphers, living at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries CE. The neschi style he developed has remained one of the most popular Arabic scripts till modern times.

Together with the expansion of Islam, the Arabic language was spreading and transforming, and so too was Arabic calligraphy.

In certain regions of the Muslim world, characteristic styles of writing had developed, including the Persian or Maghreb style.

Although the issue of the direct impact of iconoclasm on the popularity of calligraphy in the Muslim world is debatable, there is no doubt that calligraphy became an important part of Islamic culture and art.

The Modern Arabic alphabet consists of 28 consonantal signs:

‫ا ب ت ث ج ح خ د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض‬ ‫ط ظ ع غ ف ق ك ل م ن ه و ي‬

Additionally, there are other characters in use that are not formally part of the alphabet, eg. hamza [‫ – ]ء‬the designation of the vocal and ta marbuta [‫ – ]ة‬used to mark the endings of words in the feminine case.

There is no distinction between capital and small letters. There are many ligatures and combined words that give Arabic script a characteristic form. Due to these combinations, each letter has three graphical variants depending on its position within the word: an initial, middle and final, as well as a so-called isolated form – when it is written as a single character, unconnected with another letter.

Arabic language distinguishes vowel length. Each of the three vowels of the Arabic language – a, i, u – has both a long and short variant. Short vowels are rarely written – usually in religious texts or handbooks for studying the language. They are marked with signs placed above or below the letters. Unlike short vowels, long vowels are always written. As the Arabic script does not have signs for vowels, three consonantal letters – alif, waw and ya – are used to write a, u, i.

Prior to incorporating Indian numerals (the numerals known to Europeans as Arabic come originally from India), the Arabs used the letters of the alphabet to write numbers. Although nowadays they are not used for this purpose, a numerical value can still be assigned to each of the letters of the Arabic alphabet.

Pola Zygmunt, The Asia and Pacific Museum

102—103

Arabic

Haven’t they wandered the world so they would form/create hearts to understand through our ears to listen with; for it is not the eyes that go blind, it’s the hearts in chests that lose the vision.

A little bit of patience, a little bit of motivation and the dream will turn into a real scene and sound; if we don’t dream we cease to exist.

104—105

106—107

Korean

Korean script, known as Hangul, might at first glance be mistaken for Chinese characters. But Hangul is in fact an alphabetic system invented by the Korean King Sejong and a group of scholars in the first half of the 15th century CE. For centuries Korea was greatly influenced by Chinese culture; Chinese characters were used to write the Korean language for many centuries. As in Japan, Chinese characters could not fully represent the Korean language. Furthermore, the process of learning Chinese characters is complicated, time consuming and hence available only to the elite. King Sejong, known for his spirit of innovation, saw Chinese characters as a hindrance to widespread literacy in Korea. He wanted a new script that was a good fit for the Korean language and was easy to learn.

Hangul, unlike Chinese characters, would be the script of the common people. The educated elite found the new script a threat to their privileged status and a degradation of the high place accorded to calligraphy in Chinese culture. They worked to block the king’s new script, and though they ultimately failed, they certainly slowed the introduction of Hangul for certain purposes. It was not until the late 19th and early 20th century that Hangul became the official writing system at all levels of society.

Nowadays Chinese characters still appear on some occasions, such as in scholarly and religious texts, in the art of calligraphy, or when a word with Chinese origins might be misunderstood.

Hangul calligraphy is, in many ways, an appendage of Chinese calligraphy: most practitioners of Hangul calligraphy strive to achieve the esthetic standards of Chinese brushwork, even though its simpler alphabetic shapes provide less scope for artistic expression.

The basic units of Hangul script represent single sounds – 14 signs for consonants and 10 for vowels. The shape of each sign is related to the speech organ that is used in articulating it. For instance – signs for consonants pronounced with the tongue touching the back part of the palate, like /g/ and /k/ are respectively ㄱ and ㄲ. Accordingly – /n/ and /d/ pronounced with the tongue touching the front of the palate, are represented by the signs ㄴ and ㄷ.

Signs for vowels are based on vertical or horizontal lines.

As we can divide vowels into front or back vowels, so in most cases the distinguishing elements are added to the front or back of the main line. This correlation between the form of the letters and the place of articulation gives the system the name “featural.” There are more logical correlations in the Korean script. The sign ㅁ representing /m/ was inspired by the Chinese glyph for “a mouth.” Other consonants pronounced with closed lips like /m/, are represented by similar signs written with two parallel horizontal lines: /b/ by ㅂ or/p/ by ㅍ.

Theoretically Hangul letters can be placed in horizontal lines much like western alphabetic systems. In continuance of Chinese tradition the letters are composed in square glyphs representing syllables. This way, the Korean script keeps the advantages of both systems. On one hand the small number of letters makes it easy to learn and, on the other hand, the syllabic component increases its efficiency in use. Syllabic blocks save space on the page and let a reader grasp bigger units of text in one glance, speeding up the process of reading.

In current practice texts are usually arranged from left to right; but in the past characters were also written from top to bottom and right to left.

The Korean art of calligraphy traditionally used Chinese characters rather than Hangul. At the end of the Japanese occupation in 1945 increased nationalist sentiment created a new interest in using Hangul script as the basis of Korean calligraphy.

Aleksandra Twardokęs, University of Warsaw

108—109

Korean

Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead.

Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow.

Just walk beside me and be my friend.

110—111

112—113

Devanagari

Devanagari (Devanāgarī) script – used by many languages in the Indian subcontinent – is one of the most widely adopted writing systems in the world. It represents a branch of the Brahmic family of South and Southeast Asia scripts and descends from the ancient Brāhmī script used in Prakrit inscriptions dating to the 3rd century BCE. Devanagari was developed in northern India for Sanskrit before the 10th century CE. It descends from Nāgarī script (believed to have emerged around the 7 th century CE, with the earliest known inscriptions dating around the 9 th century CE), and then mostly supplanting other northern scripts for epigraphic and literary purposes, achieving its standard form around 1000 CE. The name nāgarī is a feminine adjective (qualifying the noun lipi – “writing, script”), which derives from the noun nagara meaning “a town, city.” This would suggest that the name of the Nāgarī script means [the script] “of a city” or in other words, the “urban” script. Deva means “a god, deity,” thus the name Devanāgarī could be interpreted as [the script] “from the city of gods” or as the “divine, heavenly” version of the “urban” script.

Devanagari is a script of the abugida type, i.e. its basic characters denote either independent vowels (for example an initial vowel of a word) or consonants with an implicit short vowel, the value of which can be changed and marked with the use of diacritics to denote other vowels. Diacritics to mark dependent vowels are added above, below, in front of or behind the basic character. Thus, the simple character क denotes the Sanskrit language consonant k plus the vowel a, and we read it as ka, while the syllable kā would be written का, ki would be written कि, and respectively kī – क ी, ku – क ु , kū – क ू , ke – क ,े ko – को, kai – क ,ै kau – कौ, and kṛ – क ृ.

The script is composed of 47 primary characters including 14 independent vowels and 33 consonants. The character order of Devanagari follows phonetic principles of the Sanskrit language which take into account the manner and place of articulation of the phonemes they represent. Thirty three consonants are thus organized on one hand into voiced and unvoiced, aspirated and unaspirated, nasal, and sibilant, and on the other hand, into guttural, palatal, retroflex, dental, and labial, with an additional group of 4 so-called semivowels.

The end of a sentence or a half-verse is usually marked with a vertical bar (daṇḍa) ।, and the end of a full verse may be marked with a double bar ॥. Historically, in Devanagari manuscripts we could also see various types of comma (short upper or lower lines), but there were no question or exclamation marks. The latter, however, following European practices, was introduced into the Devanagari script used by the contemporary Indo-Aryan languages, for example into Hindi.

As Devanagari was adapted to write not only Sanskrit but also other languages, phonetically different from each other, there were some slight variations or additions to the script, mostly because of foreign lexical borrowings in new Indo-Aryan languages. For example, an additional subscript dot in Hindi is used for Persian, Arabic and English sounds or allophonic developments, and an extra line below a consonant character indicates implosives in the Sindhi language.

Today, Devanagari script is used either as the exclusive script or as one of many scripts by dozens of South Asia languages, most importantly by Hindi, and is strongly promoted by the government of the Republic of India as one of the preferred official scripts.

Dr. Monika Nowakowska, University of Warsaw

114—115

Devanagari (Hindi)

Let bygones be bygones! excerpt In your life there was a star.

If it was close to your heart it was a good start.

If it has faded, look at the face of the sky: many stars fell, many loved ones went away.

Those who left never came back.

But when does the sky grieve over the fallen stars?

Let bygones be bygones!

Sri Harivansh Rai Bachchan

116—117

118—119

Japanese

Japanese script can be easily confused with Chinese. To the untutored eye they appear to be one and the same script. There is a good reason for the confusion.

The modern Japanese writing system is composed of various subsystems. The majority of Japanese signs, several thousand in total, are ideographs called kanji, namely ‘Chinese signs’ adopted from China to write Japanese. Kanji are ideographs, with each kanji representing one meaning or idea, though some represent a range of loosely related concepts. Most kanji can be pronounced in more than one way and the choice of the correct reading depends on the context a kanji appears in. Japanese pupils are supposed to know at least 1,006 kanji at the age of 12 and 2,136 (of so called jōyō kanji) when they graduate from high school. The total number of kanji is very difficult to approximate, but certainly exceeds 50,000, with 3000– 4000 in regular use.

Still, many native speakers tend to forget how to read many kanji and often cannot write them. Without constant practice it is easy to confuse one character for another, even those that are frequently used.

Kanji can be very complex in form and complicated in use. They also do not map well to the Japanese language, which unlike Chinese is not tonal. For this reason, the Japanese devised two syllabic alphabets, called hiragana and katakana. Each contains 46 letters (or 71 including diacritics) and is perfectly adapted to the sounds of the Japanese language. Unlike kanji, hiragana and katakana characters intrinsically represent sounds only. Every letter stands for a syllable, so there are , for example, the letter か that stands for /ka/ in hiragana and its sibling カ that stands for /ka/ in katakana. All of these letters originally derive from kanji, but they have been simplified and modified to such an extent that their origins are no longer visually obvious. Hiragana was developed at the Heian court around the year 1000 CE and is used primarily for writing native Japanese words. It plays an important part in any Japanese text and is taught to Japanese children at an early age. Katakana was a later invention, specifically used to spell out loanwords from other languages, the proper name of a non-Japanese person, onomatopoeic expressions, a scientific names and phonetic notations.

Katakana can also be used simply for emphasis, just as italics in English.

Most written Japanese sentences contain a mixture of kanji, hiragana and katakana. This way of combining ideographs with phonetic letters is called kanji kana majiri bun, which literally means ‘text mixing kanji and syllabic letters’. Texts without kanji are rare, but one can find them in children's books, since children know very few kanji at an early age. Almost all train stations across Japan are equipped with boards presenting the name of the place written both in kanji and hiragana for kanjiilliterate children and foreigners.

To a lesser extent, modern written Japanese also uses Latin letters, particularly in acronyms like ‘CD’ or ‘LDK’, Hindu–Arabic numerals, Roman numerals, and all sort of world-wide-known signs and symbols like % , $ , #, §, @ and emojis, that is ‘pictograms’, for example, ☺, ☆, ♡ etc.

What is the easiest way to distinguish a Japanese text from Chinese one? Simply look for some easily spotted hiragana letters such as /ni/ に or /no/ の, which appear in almost every Japanese sentence. If there is one, most likely the whole text is written in Japanese. Unfortunately, for proper names and lists of single words – like in restaurant menus – this simple rule cannot be applied. Without knowing the context it would be impossible to guess from the three letters ‘pie’ whether it refers to the English term for a pastry dish or the Spanish term for a part of a leg. The best advice is to ‘keep calm and study the Japanese writing system’ in depth.

Dr. Aleksandra Wąsowicz-Peinado, University of Warsaw

120—121

Japanese

Kankyo no Tomo, or A Companion in Solitude 1222, volume I, episode 4 A long time ago, the holy priest Kūya lived in the mountains.

He used to say: ‘It is so noisy here!’, so his disciples, and there were many of them with him, always tried to remain quiet. This happened many times, and one day holy Kūya disappeared, as if someone blew out a candle. The disciples looked for him everywhere they could think of, but they did not find him anywhere, and so many long months passed.

what kind of a man could be sitting there, and when he came closer, it turned out to be his master, who had disappeared without a trace.

One day, a disciple had an errand to do, so he went to a marketplace. In the middle of the market there was a strange little hut made of a straw mat with man was sitting inside. In front of him there was an old bowl and people passing by were tossing in leftovers of food. The disciple was curious to see

said the disciple, and the master replied:

How strange! We would never guess you might want to mingle with the people of this world, Master, after you left the mountains. You said it was too noisy for you there

The place I used to live before was very noisy, but here it is peaceful and my heart is calm. I could never expect it to be so. Just think about all the turbulence I felt when I was

thinking all the time how to take care of you, my disciples.

Here, at the marketplace, all I need to do is to put out my bowl and food appears. I do not suffer poverty. There is nothing to distract me and it is quite wonderful here. There are people in this world who wander about although their hair is white as snow, and there are also some, who deceive themselves and forget about the future life, although they should worry about it. When I see them I always cry and my tears do not stop. I practice meditation. My heart is peaceful now. This is a wonderful place.

This is what holy KĹŤya said. The disciple was sobbing and all the people who listened to their conversation burst into tears.

Keisei, Japanese Buddhist monk from manuscript "Reizei Tamesuke" (1263–1328) translation: Anna Zalewska

122—123

124—125

126—127

Acknowledgements

Organisers and curators wish to express their gratitude to: Dr hab. Katarzyna Mikulska, professor of University of Warsaw and her research group for co-working on the publication and writing essays on the different scripts; Brody Neuenschwander for his critical review of the book and making great editorial changes; Beata Czajkowska and David Skully, who read the text of the book carefully, improved the language and corrected mistakes; Marcin Kowalski who opened the door of the reading room of the Public Library of Warsaw City and helped us to manage performance; Aleksandra Twardokęs – K. Mikulska’s research group member and Dominika Kossowska-Janik – curator of “Pismo nieulotne – pisma w kulturach świata” exhibition, who collaborated with us for Brody Neuenschwander’s residency in The Asia and Pacific Museum and all associated events.

Michał and Rafal Nebelski – FoxRabbit – for their pinhole photography, which was unusual and perfectly appropriate for this event; and for their documentation of the writing in the Public Library of Warsaw City; Jakub Zięba – director and operator of film and photography, documenting Silent Writing performances; Warsaw Public Library and The Asia and Pacific Museum who hosted Scribes, sharing their spaces with calligraphers and amateurs involved in cross-cultural writing; The Warsaw Calligraphy House [Warszawski Dom Kaligrafii] who helped to find and encourage script lovers to write publicly; Finally, we thank YOU – All of the Writers who came to show and share the written wisdom of humankind; We are thankful for Wisława Szymborska Foundation and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for their courtesy in allowing us to use "Radość pisania” by Wisława Szymborska, which we quoted in this book and in the opening credits of Jakub Zięba film.

128—129

Credits

Photography

Calligraphy

Rafal Nebelski www.rafalnebelski.com www.foxrabbit.pl / toranote / foxrabbit_ / rafalnebelski.vivid.imagination / FoxrabbitDesigners

all except pp. 8–9, 14, 98

Jakub Zięba

8–9, 14

Hanna Mikheyeva

98

Texts Copyright © by Wisława Szymborska Foundation and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

10–11

Wikisource, the free library www.wikisource.org

36, 38, 46, 48, 54, 70, 80, 92, 95

The world's wit and humor: an encyclopedia of the classic wit and humor of all ages and nations, Lionel Strachey, 1906

64

The Collected Poems of Vladimir Mayakovsky, translated by Dorian Rottenberg, USSR, 1972

72

Gems of Chinese verse W. J. B. Fletcher, 1919

86

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia www.wikipedia.org

96

The quotations were chosen and delivered by participants of performance from private sources.

Brody Neuenschwander Agata Dohojda Aleksandra Ćwikowska Anna Eichler Anna Zalewska Azhar Beisenbekova Barbara Galińska Hebatallah Abouhamd Helena Czernek Irina Czarnowska Janusz Korzeniowski Justyna Rozwarska Karol Pazoła Katarzyna Pustoła Katarzyna Zakliczyńska Kristina Zekhra Erturk Magdalena Blaschke Marta Sidor Olga Kulish Viktoriia Vakulenko Wojciech Pludowski Yu Zhong Author Unknown

30–39 86–87 46–49 40–41 120–121 66–69 70–71 102–103 96–97 64–65 92–93 108–109 52–53 42–45 80–81 56–57 54–55 82–83 72–75 114–115 50–51 84–85 94–95

ISBN 978-83-953724-4-5