Christchurch Fire continues...
A bit of an update on the current situation in Christchurch, New Zealand
The fire on the port hills continues into its 4th day
• Up to eight homes are believed to have been destroyed by raging wildfires which continued to burn overnight, jumping into Victoria Park.
• A state of civil emergency has been declared in Christchurch and Selwyn.
• People are advised to stay away from the hills to allow emergency services access and ensure swift evacuation.
• Residents have been advised to prepare to evacuate at short notice, with fires on about 10 different fronts.
• 450 homes have been officially evacuated. Many others have self-evacuated.
• Fires have burned 1850 hectares of land.
Evacuation Centres
1. Halswell Library 2. Selwyn Events Centre in Lincoln 3. Te Hapua Halswell Centre, Halswell Rd 4. Nga Hau e Wha Marae, Pages Rd 5. There's also a Facebook page, Evacuation Housing, for evacuated residents to ask for help, and for people to offer temporary accommodation to those evacuated.
Learn the Writing Systems of the World
An introduction to every living writing system used in the world today. An overview of the different types of scripts and how to recognise each of them (even if you don't speak the language).
Presentation slides can be downloaded at:
Handouts from the event can be downloaded at:
1:10 Overview of scripts
6:59 Alphabets: Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Armenian and Georgian
14:37 Abjads: Arabic, Hebrew and Mongolian
22:48 Abugidas (introduction)
26:47 Abugidas (part 1) Bengali, Devanagari, Gujarati, Gurmikhi and Tibetan
31:01 Abugidas (part 2) Odia, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Sinhala
35:52 Abugidas (part 3) Burmese, Khmer, Lao and Thai. Also Thaana
41:27 East-Asian scripts: Chinese, Japanese and Korean
54:56 Rare scripts: Tiffinagh, N'Ko, Samaritan, Syriac, Inuktitut/Cree, Cherokee, Yi, Ol Chiki, Fraser and Tai Le
Introduction by Hyden Toonen (NZSTI Canterbury Branch President)
Presented by Josiah Beach
Filming and editing by Caleb Ward
Filmed at Te Hapua: The Halswell Centre, Christchurch, New Zealand on 30 September 2018
Made with funding from the New Zealand Society of Translators and Interpreters (NZSTI)