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Description

Learn how to read the language cards of Atlas Altera, which convey succinct bits of information.

In Altera, more than a thousand languages or lects make it onto paper for official use. With the backing of the state, these languages can flourish, but more importantly, have some safety in that collective memory of these cultural artifacts are guaranteed as much as the political world order in play, the very one that supposes the state as the main backdrop for the human condition—the locus for human aspiration and struggle. Still, there are not enough states to fill the myriad languages and dialects of humankind, each one with their own idiosyncrasies as much as ingenuities, and each with their poetries and knowledges. As states capture or grow organically out of peoples, lexicon inevitably becomes a site of violence. With time, the words of the marginal and non-state others will die or fade into obscurity. This is progress—or so we're told. The prevailing or state-backed official language of a country is represented by Altera language cards. Each card shows the the state in which it is spoken, the three-letter ISO 639-3 code and corresponding language in the real world, what language family and major branches it belongs to, as well as a preview of the writing system used to represent it.

Description

Learn how to read the language cards of Atlas Altera, which convey succinct bits of information.

In Altera, more than a thousand languages or lects make it onto paper for official use. With the backing of the state, these languages can flourish, but more importantly, have some safety in that collective memory of these cultural artifacts are guaranteed as much as the political world order in play, the very one that supposes the state as the main backdrop for the human condition—the locus for human aspiration and struggle. Still, there are not enough states to fill the myriad languages and dialects of humankind, each one with their own idiosyncrasies as much as ingenuities, and each with their poetries and knowledges. As states capture or grow organically out of peoples, lexicon inevitably becomes a site of violence. With time, the words of the marginal and non-state others will die or fade into obscurity. This is progress—or so we're told. The prevailing or state-backed official language of a country is represented by Altera language cards. Each card shows the the state in which it is spoken, the three-letter ISO 639-3 code and corresponding language in the real world, what language family and major branches it belongs to, as well as a preview of the writing system used to represent it.