Calligraphy, from the Greek words “kallos” (beauty) and “graphein” (to write), is the art of beautiful writing. More than mere penmanship, it transforms language into visual art, where each stroke carries intention, rhythm, and aesthetic purpose. Across millennia and cultures, calligraphy has served as both practical communication and profound artistic expression, bridging the functional and…
Writing systems around the world fall into several categories: alphabets like the Latin or Cyrillic scripts, syllabaries like Japanese kana, and logographic systems like Chinese characters. But there’s another major category that bridges the gap between alphabets and syllabaries, the abugida, sometimes called an alphasyllabary. What Makes an Abugida Unique? In an abugida script, each…
Human civilisation has developed dozens of writing systems over millennia, each reflecting the unique linguistic, cultural, and historical contexts of its users. From the flowing curves of Arabic to the geometric precision of Korean Hangul, these scripts represent humanity’s enduring quest to capture language in visual form. This article explores the major writing systems used…
On 19th December 1843, a small crimson-and-gold bound book appeared in London bookshops. Within five days, all 6,000 copies had sold out. By the end of 1844, thirteen editions had been released. The book was Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol: In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas,” and it would not only rescue its…
