Fernando Caro Dives Akuru was a writing system used in the Maldives for at least twelve centuries and it became extinct in the 20th century after being replaced by the current official script, Thaana. It was not translated into typographic forms and existed only in manuscripts. It is an Indic Script, like Sinhala and Devanagari, but it took a distinct path in history from its relatives.
While India and Sri Lanka were colonized for many centuries, which influenced the letterforms, the Maldives was not an interesting place for Europeans to occupy. Instead, the country was associated more with the Arabs which culminated in its conversion to Islam in the 12th century. Dives Akuru began to be written with Arabic, which transformed letterforms that were previously written on copper plates.
Preserving the script’s history did not receive much attention from locals. Incidents of destruction of artifacts in the 20th century and the current rise in sea levels demonstrate that its history is still in danger. However, the subject has attracted the interest of scholars, which helped to keep its history alive.
This research project was developed during the post-master program at the ANRT (Nancy, France); and it aims to help preserve the script with assistance from the role of typography in this process. The final product is a typeface intended as a tool for scientific publications, also as well as being available to locals.
Dealing with an extinct script introduces challenges in typeface design. How to translate to typography the stylistic variety of cursive manuscript forms? How to capture the calligraphic essence of letterforms without being overly influenced by the rationalized Western point of view, as has happened to other Indic scripts? These are some of the questions this project aims to address, seeking for the right design approach.