I am not going to lie, 2016 does not feel like 8 years ago, although realistically, it is.

Reflecting back on the past year, we have touched on many different topics, ranging from writing systems, to more investigative pieces focusing on certain aspects of language or linguistics. These topics have been driven by an unstoppable curiosity in rationalising or explaining the linguistic patterns I observe, or documenting what I have learnt about a certain topic, like Irish orthography.

Among these, is a new series I want to do called Made Simple, where I try to break down certain linguistics terms and concepts into simpler, more comprehensible terms. It is part of my drive to try to improve at communicating linguistics stuff to a wider audience, which would also help me learn more about the field as well. While there is only a couple of introductory essays covering terms like agglutinative and polysynthetic, I want to expand this series over time, and stick to a certain theme for each introduction.

As promised from last anniversary, here is a handwriting update, but done on a digital medium instead of pen and paper. I tried to adjust the brush I used such that it looked like I was using a marker to write these. Once again, the writing systems covered here this year include the Latin alphabet, Japanese hiragana and katakana, Cyrillic alphabet, and the Tamil abugida. I might want to add the Arabic script at some point, or perhaps a more obscure writing system that I have covered on The Language Closet.

Lastly, I have a new banner for you. Inspired from the banner I have been using for the past several years, this one is a bit more free-form. The Traditional Chinese character is given more space to stand out from the other characters from other writing systems, to keep the theme consistent with this website’s icon. Do you recognise the other writing systems in this banner? Let me know your score (out of 24) in the comments!

I would also want to hear what you like, and did not like about The Language Closet over the past year, or if there is a particular essay that left a significant impression on you. Here is to another year of informative, reflective, and intriguing content!

~Zui