Shepherd - Learn world calligraphy: discover African, Arabic, Chinese, Ethiopic, Greek, Hebrew, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Russian, Thai, Tibetan calligraphy, and beyond

Greeks say efharisto, thank you, for an answered prayer by tying a silver tag on their saints icon.

Kwezi Arthur

Adrienne Ingrum

Annie Zeybekoglu

Lois Russell

Saki Mafundikwa

Calestous Juma

Marion Kilson

Chaz Maviyane-Davies

Carolyn Newberger

Imam Razokov Gafurjon

Barbara Whitesides

Sheila Sondik

Rick Doubleday

Smith College students of Abdelkader Berrahmoun

Anita Lincoln

Kitty Clark

Patricia Watts

Emily Neumeier

Grethe Shepherd

Marilyn Brandt

Paula Cronin

Christy and Hali Tsang

Gail Bernstein

Lisbeth Shepherd

Erica Wessmann

Wei Yang

Nancy Boulton-LeGates

Anna Davol

Sharon Hogan

Felix Doolittle

Sallie Gouverneur

David Thomas

Haile Getachew

Nesanet Alemayhu

Fetelulork Alemayhu

Bettie Abebe

Andrew Staad

Joy, Stahis, and Dafnis Panagides

Robert Fitzwilliam

Pam Steel

Jay Boggis

Marina Hatsopoulous

Daphne Hatsopoulous

Hannah Sarvasy

Peter Banos

Elliot Rothman

Abby Rosenfeld

Cynthia Bell

Amelie Bell-Kamen

Liz and Ethan Offen

Rev. Stephen Kendrick

Jonathan Kremer

Indira Peterson

Aye Moh

Swami Kumaresan

Ruby Seung He

Theodore Kim

Christopher Atwood

Nancy Atwood

Purevjav Jambalragchaa

Elena Napier

Clark Abt

Francis Randall

Crystal Woodward

Galina and Viktor Khatutsky

Theodora Shepherd

Ron Sampson

Sherman Lewis IV

Alison Lewis

Gordon Shepherd

John Wawrzonek

Steve Dunwell

Deborah Paddock

Cathleen Schaad

Stephanie Luke

Lisa Abitbol

Katya Popova

Leslie Miller

Candace Raney

Autumn Kindelspire

Jessica Morphew

Alyn Evans

Alison Hagge

Colleen Mohyde

In addition, many calligraphers, photographers, and other artists contributed their work; they have my deepest gratitude.

Enya Keshet

Richard Widhu

Konrad Tuchscherer

Andrew van der Merwe

Jocelyne Santos

Lalla Essaydi

Hamed Saber

Valerie Elliott

Monica Dengo

Chun Liu

Anne Garland

Shinichi Maruyama

Linda Liu

Thch Nhat Han

Xu Bing

L Quc Viet

Sandy Diamond

Haji Noor Deen

Y.T. Feng and Ti Fen Wang

Diedrik Nelson

Peter Williams

Carl Rohrs

Kan Kozaki

Jan Owen

Hambis Tsangaris

Marc Michaels

Robert Indiana

Minh c Tri Tm nh

Betsy Teutsch

Kensaku and Michiko Mori

Sivia Katz

Muhammad Akbar Daftari

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

Stewart Thomas

Ed Scher

Kyle McCreight-Carroll

Claudia Wang

Krista Basis

Tashi Mannox

Gary Westergren

Jeane Redmond

Yoo Sung Lee

Myoung-Won Kwon

Ju-hyung Jo

Zolbayar Sukhbaatar

Delger

Leonid Pronenko

Dmitry Babenko

Ivan Gulkov

David Oei/Carol Hesselink

Jean-Franois Bodart

Tatiana and Yuri Zieman

Tom Costello

Alexander Mikaberidze

Ron Esplin and Julie Woods

Rick Cusick

Sallie Porfido

Michael Schwartz

Carl Hostetter

Patrick Wynne

Mehdi Saeedi

S PECIAL T HANKS

David Friend

Lily, Zo, Zack, Jasper

Turn to the for a list of all artists and sources.

This practical guide to calligraphy helps you understand how to write every script in the world. I do not try to explain how each language soundsa different, much longer bookbut how it looks when an artist writes it. You will get to know each kind of calligraphy by looking carefully at its shape, studying its masterpieces, grasping its structure, and learning its basic techniques.

Once your fingers have written a foreign script, your eyes own it. It becomes part of your world. Learning to write letters you dont read, however, is only the first step. That souvenir you picked up can be a tool that applies your new scripts techniques and tools to the familiar Roman alphabet.

Many of the worlds scripts have survived by rejecting outside influences; Roman letters thrive by embracing them. The Roman alphabet makes friends easily; when it meets a new script, it has always liked to get married and give birth to vigorous hybrid offspring. Whenever you copy a Roman hybrid or create your own, you carry on a tradition that started thousands of years ago. Those second-generation virtual alphabets make this book more than just a package tour marching you through the written world. It encourages you to spend time in exotic places without stumbling over language barriers, absorb what you see, and bring home new ways to write.