With the start of February, it's two weeks until February 14th. That means it's time once again for the annual campaign to change which saints we remember on that particular day (not that we currently remember any of them, for that matter).
For all those of you not yet enlightened by this knowledge, Feb 14 is CYRIL AND METHODIUS DAY. These two Greek saints lived in the ninth century and invented the Glagolitic alphabet, the first known alphabet for slavic languages. This is a) far more impressive than Valentine, whose biography is effectively nonexistent, and b) books and languages are a far cooler thing to think about on Feb 14 and can be enjoyed by a much lager percentage of the population. I therefore want to see how many of us will actually take the plunge and celebrate/appropriate Cyril and Methodius Day as a friendly, non-commercialised, non-denominational festival of linguistics and literature.
So, what can you do to celebrate Cyril and Methodius day?
- Read a book. Especially if it's about or from eastern Europe.
- Hug a friendly linguist, and tell them how much you appreciate alphabets.
- Tell other people it's Cyril and Methodius day. Spread the word!
- Reccommend good books to a friend. Make ALL the reading happen!
- Do conlanging/make a new alphabet/do linguistics!
- Most crucially, I'd encourage people to donate to Room to Read on Feb 14:
https://www.roomtoread.org/DonateThey're a charity who specialise in providing books, schooling, and support across the developing world, and particularly trying to improve gender equality in education.
I'll post a few more things about this over the next couple of weeks, but hopefully you'll consider lending your support, wallets, social media feeds, etc, to this cause. Thankyou for reading!
