Amharic (ኣማርኛ)

Amharic is written with a version of the Ge'ez script known as ፊደል (Fidel). There are a number of ways to transliterate Amharic into the Latin alphabet, including one developed by Ernst Hammerschmidt, the EAE Transliteration system, developed by Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, and the BGN/PCGN* system, which was designed for use in romanizing names written in Amharic characters and adopted by the UN in 1967.

 

 

Artist in residency @ Artsbox.
The Artsbox is the incubation point for collecting some calligraphies
for Scripta's installation piece.

Some languages often used in Footscray for local businesses

Greek

Chinese and Thai

Arabic

Vietnamise

Amharic

https://youtu.be/Qa3n7fSUw38

http://www.bigwest.com.au/festival-2015/scripta/

Igbo (Asụsụ Igbo) 

Igbo is one of the four official languages of Nigeria and is a member of the Volta-Niger branch of the Niger-Congo family of languages. It is spoken by about 18 million people in Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea. G. C. A. Oldendorp, a German missionary, was the first person to produce a book containing material written in Igbo, which consisted of a few words and phrases. His book, Geschichte der Mission der Evangelischen Bruder auf den Carabischen (History of the Evangelistic Mission of the Brothers in the Caribbean), was published in 1777. The first book in Igbo, Isoama-Ibo a primer, was produced in 1857 by Samuel Ajayi Crowther, an ex-slave and teacher who was also an outstanding African linguist, leader, and Africa's first Anglican bishop. There are numerous Igbo dialects, some of which are not mutually intelligible. The standard written form of Igbo is based on the Owerri and Umuahia dialects and has been in use since 1962.

Yoruba is one of the four official languages of Nigeria and is a member of the Volta Niger branch of the Niger-Congo family of languages. It is spoken by about 22 million people in southwest Nigeria, Benin, Togo, the UK, Brazil and the USA. Yoruba first appeared in writing during the 19th century. The first Yoruba publications were a number of teaching booklets produced by John Raban in 1830-2. The person who made the biggest contribution to Yoruba literacy was Bishop Ajayi (Samual) Crowther (1806-1891), who studied many of the languages of Nigeria, including Yoruba, and wrote and translated in some of them. Crowther was also the first Christian bishop of West African origin. A Yoruba orthography appeared in about 1850, though it has undergone a number of changes since then.

Urdu is a standardised register of the Hindustani language. It is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, and an official language of six states of India. It is also one of the 22 official languages recognized in the Constitution of India. Urdu is historically associated with the Muslims of the region of Hindustan. Apart from specialized vocabulary, Urdu is mutually intelligible with Standard Hindi, which is associated with the Hindu community. The Urdu language received recognition and patronage under the British Raj when the British replaced the Persian and local official languages of North Indian Jammu and Kashmir state with the Urdu and English language in 1837.

Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken natively by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various migrant communities. It belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family.

The Rañjanā script is an abugida writing system which developed in the 11th century. It is primarily used for writing the Newar language but is also used in Buddhist monasteries in India, China, Mongolia, and Japan. It is normally written from left to right but the Kutakshar form is written from top to bottom. It is also considered to be the standard Nepali calligraphic script.

The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul in South Korea and elsewhere and as Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea and China, is the alphabet that has been used to write the Korean language since the 15th century. It was created during the Joseon Dynasty in 1443, and is now the official script of both South Korea and North Korea, and co-official in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture of China's Jilin Province.

Bari - one of the written languages from South Sudan.

Bari is the Nilotic language of the Karo people, spoken over large areas of Central Equatoria state in South Sudan, across the northwest corner of Uganda, and into the Democratic Republic of Congo. Bari is spoken by several distinct tribes: the Bari people themselves, the Pojulu, Kakwa, Nyangwara, Mundari, and Kuku.

SCRIPTA - Writings of the World - is a street art project intended to celebrate the written word as one of mankind’s primordial vehicles of communication. The SCRIPTA’s project objective is to collect and catalogue different forms of writing used by the various communities present in Melbourne’s west in a giant mapa-mundi index paste up collaborative installation piece. This project will part of The Big West Festival in November 2015. Location - African Town Cafe - Corner of Nicholson St and Albert St in Footscray.