The Future of Writing with Tim Brookes
Tim Brookes
Founder, Endangered Alphabets Project; Author of Writing Beyond Writing
The More Diverse the Script, the Harder It Is to Digitise
Tim Brookes, founder of the Endangered Alphabets Project, returns for Part 2 with a provocation: the digital revolution is built on the assumptions of the Latin alphabet, and everything that does not fit those assumptions is being left behind. To digitise a writing system, you need a standard letter that fits in a box of a standard size that can be mapped at a certain number of points. The more interesting, colourful, idiosyncratic, and diverse a form of writing is, the harder it is to digitise.
Scripts used for divination, magic, or ceremonial purposes, scripts that include pictures or demons, scripts that were carved rather than written, all of these lag behind because the entire digital infrastructure was developed from the most mechanised script in the world: the Latin alphabet as shaped by centuries of printing. Communities that developed their own writing systems over their own history for their own beliefs are being told they must change if they want to be connected to the internet.
AI Is Turning Writing into a Chore We Outsource
Tim draws a line from Chaucer reading his poetry at the court of Henry II, through villages in Bali where poetry slams run all night, to the current moment where AI writes your memos for you. When writing is redefined as a chore, people immediately look for ways to mechanise it. AI obliges. But the same anonymity that makes AI-generated writing convenient is what makes it impossible for teachers to know whether students actually wrote their own work.
He tells the story of a poet friend who bought one of the first desktop computers and wrote a novel in six months. His publisher took him out on a lake in a canoe and asked him not only to not publish it but to never submit it anywhere. The point: when you write poetry, you spend 100 minutes thinking for every word. A novel written at speed has none of that reflection, self-correction, or wandering into new areas. Modelling writing on speed is a mistake from the beginning.
Handwriting Makes You Learn Faster
Research shows that learning to write by hand rather than typing leads to faster learning, better retention, and muscle memory that reinforces visual and spatial memory. Tim describes how audiences at his talks cannot help tracing the letters of his carvings with their fingertips. Those letter shapes exist for a reason: they were formed by the natural movement of fingers and wrist.
In the US, a move to eliminate handwriting as an educational requirement around 2010 was met with enough pushback that several states wrote handwriting back into their standards. But many teachers were uncomfortable because their own handwriting had been severely neglected. Tim's intern, brilliant with digital tools, could not address envelopes legibly because he had never practised the fine motor control required.
Hybrid Input Devices as a Solution
Tim's specific technical advocacy: more hybrid input devices that allow both keyboard typing and writing with a fingertip, stylus, or brush. Tablets already enable this in affluent households, but they remain more expensive and less widely distributed than standard keyboards. Voice activation adds another natural input method. The more flexible input devices become, the more they function as extensions of the human body rather than machines that constrain how we communicate.
Working with the Kapampangan in the Philippines
Tim is beginning a cultural revitalisation project with the Kapampangan people in the Philippines, whose traditional calligraphic script is beautiful but endangered. There is no funding for this kind of work because they are a declining minority. He is running a fundraiser at endangeredalphabets.com to support both his work and their efforts to create online language classes.
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Tim: In order to digitise it, you need a standard letter that fits in a box of a standard size, and you can map at a certain number of points, which is how all this happens. And the more interesting and colourful and idiosyncratic and varied and diverse a form of writing is, the harder it is to digitise it.
Brian: Today we are back with Tim Brookes, founder of the Endangered Alphabets Project. We are going to get some updates from Tim and discuss the future of writing. Are we killing it? What will happen if we do? Tim, welcome back to The Native Experience.
Tim: Thanks for inviting me back.
Brian: What are you nerding out on right now?
Tim: I am carving an 80-inch long dining table with a repeating Buddhist mantra in a script that was used a thousand years ago in Angkor Wat. This is going to be one of the most beautiful things I have ever made.
Brian: What are the updates?
Tim: World Endangered Writing Day back in January seems like 50 years ago. I am already thinking about next January, which speakers we are going to have and which communities I am going to highlight. Writing Beyond Writing is now out in the world. I have another book coming out in three or four months, a print edition of my online atlas of endangered alphabets. I have been invited to be a visiting fellow at Cambridge University. I am going over for a couple of weeks, doing a carving specially for them and giving a talk. Then flying back and my daughter is getting married.
Brian: Talk about the future of writing.
Tim: Up until about 15 years ago, even though I had been a writer all my adult life, I had never really thought much about writing beyond how to use it. My work with the Endangered Alphabets Project has taken me all over the world. Seeing how so many other cultures think of writing and carry out writing made me realise a lot about the assumptions that we in the privileged West go by without thinking.
Tim: We are currently in this extraordinary sales bombardment in terms of AI. People are making discoveries like, I do not need to write this memo now, I can just give the salient information to my AI and it will write the whole thing for me. But at the same time, people in teaching are saying, how do I know this is actually my student's work?
Tim: When you go back to the advent of printing, previous uses of writing were very personal. There is a great painting of Geoffrey Chaucer around 1390 reading his poetry at court. It was a public and personal exchange. You still find this in villages in Bali where they have contests, like poetry slams, where one person reads a piece of traditional Balinese literature and somebody else simultaneously translates it. These things go on all night.
Tim: When you start turning writing over to a mechanical process, first with printing, then with typing, then with digitisation, you lose that personal investment that comes with handwriting a letter. You create an anonymity. If you define writing as something you have to do, a chore, then AI comes along and says I can do it for you instantly. The very anonymity that comes with introducing mechanisation into writing is now coming back to bite the teachers who are complaining about it.
Brian: What about the spoken word?
Tim: I am working with an indigenous group in the Philippines, the Kapampangan. They have their own writing system which is traditional, beautiful, and calligraphic. I am looking for ways to help them into the digital age without taking away the handwritten component. There is now software that will allow you to speak and it converts into digital text. We all have those apps. But there is nothing that will read your writing and convert that into digital text. So it is pushing people to use keyboards rather than traditional writing tools. The spoken word is being catered to a great deal more than the handwritten word.
Brian: Talk about digitally disadvantaged communities.
Tim: When the digital revolution started, there was a huge difference between people with high-speed internet and people with dial-up or nothing, or no electricity. As you look around the world, there are communities that now have a font, a keyboard, and can text on their phones. But there are others that do not have that capacity. Their form of writing is very hard to convert to a standard. In order to digitise it, you need a standard letter that fits in a box of a standard size. The more interesting and diverse a form of writing is, the harder it is to digitise.
Tim: You are getting a kind of disadvantagement of digitisation based on the fact that everything has been developed in the West using the Latin alphabet. The Latin alphabet is the script most affected by printing. It is the most mechanised script. All of these cultures with amazing scripts used for divination or magic or ceremonial purposes, they are lagging behind because it is too hard to digitise. My sympathy is with people who developed a script over their own history for their own purposes and are now being told they have to change all of that if they want to be tied into the internet.
Brian: What about literacy campaigns?
Tim: Literacy campaigns have been popular for over a century. A privileged culture looks at a less powerful culture and says we can improve your lives by teaching you to read and write. Whenever the level of power is unequal, the transaction is automatically suspect. When the British started introducing printing in India in the mid 19th century, they were not going to cast type for over a thousand languages and scripts. They only cast type for the most numerous ones. Everybody else was put in the position of having to change if they wanted to do business.
Brian: What is the solution moving forward?
Tim: I have one very specific technical solution. Your digital device typically has a keyboard as input because keyboards are a more developed and cheaper technology. A much more recent technology is the tablet with a screen you can write on with a fingertip or stylus or brush. I am going to advocate for more hybrid input devices. If you want to write on it, you have the capacity. If you want to use the keyboard, use a keyboard. Tablets are currently more expensive and less widely distributed than standard keyboard interfaces.
Tim: Kids can practice writing with a tool or their finger. Research shows that if you learn to write by actually writing as opposed to typing, you learn more quickly, you retain better what you have learned, and your memory of shapes is in your muscle memory as well as visual and spatial memories. There are tremendous arguments for not getting caught up in the keyboard-dependent digital world. The more flexible the input devices are, including voice activation, the more they become an extension of the natural functions of the human body and less like a machine.
Brian: Are schools still teaching handwriting?
Tim: Around 2010 in the US, there was a move to eliminate handwriting as an educational requirement. There was enough reaction that a number of states wrote a handwriting component into their educational standards. But a lot of teachers were unhappy because their own handwriting had been severely neglected. I had an intern, very bright, who knew infinitely more than I do about digital things. One day my printer broke and we had to address envelopes by hand. The envelopes looked as if they had been addressed by a kindergartner. He was trying his best, sweating bullets, but he had not done the necessary rehearsal to have that fine motor control.
Tim: I have a story in Writing Beyond Writing about a poet friend who had always wanted to write a novel. When the first desktops came out, he wrote a novel in six months. His publisher took him out in a canoe on a lake and said, not only am I not going to publish your novel, I am going to ask you not to submit it to anybody else. When you write poetry, you spend 100 minutes thinking for every word. With a novel written quickly, you have not spent that time in reflection and self-correction. The whole idea of modelling writing on speed is a mistake from the beginning.
Brian: How do we help cultures digitise without destroying their culture?
Tim: Starting about eight years ago I began working with the Abenaki, the Native American ancestral people of my area. What became clear was that it was my job to shut up and listen and say, how can I help? Some do not want any help because their trust has been abused so badly. Others are proactive and want to educate the broader community about who they are because they have only suffered because of misunderstandings.
Tim: Some whole tribes have decided to remain a closed book. That is entirely their right. I have been doing carvings in the Abenaki language in a font my art director designed in consultation with Abenaki citizens. It is a way of saying, we are still here. It is amazing how many people think all the Native Americans have died out.
Tim: I am just starting a project with the Kapampangan people in the Philippines. We are at the beginning stage of cultural revitalisation including spoken language and script revitalisation. There is no funding because they are a declining minority. I am running a fundraiser at endangeredalphabets.com. Anybody interested in supporting this can go there and click on the tab that says how to support us.
Brian: Tim, thank you so much. What a great discussion.
Tim: Thanks so much again for inviting me.
Brian: Tim Brookes, founder of the Endangered Alphabets Project. Remember, always strive for authenticity and embrace the power of native experiences.