From Missing Scripts to letters as numbers: what's on Alphabetica 2019

This Saturday, on the 23th of November, Alphabetica 2019 sheds light to the missing scripts of humanity and more. 

Organized in correlation with the exhibitions Missing Scripts (Alphabetum IV) and Laws of Form (Alphabetum III) this one-day symposium about letters, scripts and languages is a must if you plan to spend the weekend in Den Haag.

Presented in collaboration with the Institut Designlabor Gutenberg (Hochshule Mainz), Atelier National de Recherche Typographique (Nancy), SEI Departement of Linguistics (Univerisity of Berkekey, USA) and Type and Media (KABK Den Haag)

Alphabetica 2019 kicks off with Johannes Bergerhausen & Thomas Huot-Marchand introduction to the obscure, the historical and the so-called Minority Scripts -aka the 140 scripts which are still missing on our computers- and the Missing Scripts Project. 

This long-term initiative focuses on research and type-design for these lesser-known writing systems which are to be presented by the students of Atelier national de recherche typographique (ANRT) in Nancy.

Michael Everson will talk on the delays and obstacles in character encoding, Erik van Blokland will show how, under the right conditions, letters will behave as numbers -“not just look like a number, or represent one in a mathematical statement, but really perform arithmetic” and more. 

Check the full program here.