Unsettled Scripts: Script Invention and the Bind of Digital Recognition

This article investigates the invention of new writing systems, or “neographies”, and their uncertain trajectories in a digital age. It offers a working definition of neographies and surveys key themes in the literature: the motivations for script invention, factors influencing adoption, and the role of digital tools in enabling or impeding success. In particular, it attends to the difficulties of standardizing a script in a technical code when the script is still evolving and expanding, and the ways in which technologists have become involved in decisions about a script’s future. It uses the case study of the Adlam script, tracing its path from grassroots dissemination to Unicode encoding and subsequent refinements. The article concludes by outlining new directions for the study of neographies.