The January word for my prompt challenge book group was asemic: a word for mark-making that resembles writing but actually has no linguistic meaning. From the wikipedia definition: “Asemic writing is a wordless open semantic form of writing. The word asemic means ‘having no specific semantic content’. With the nonspecificity of asemic writing there comes a vacuum of meaning which is left for the reader to fill in and interpret. All of this is similar to the way one would deduce meaning from an abstract work of art.” There are lots of examples on pinterest or this blog.
The word made me remember a book by Macy Chadwick called Letter by Letter. While not asemic writing, it has been the start of my own exploration into the idea of scribbling. She says
Letter by Letter is about the tactility of language. It was inspired by the String Alphabet for the Blind, from Scotland, 1850, where each knot signifies a letter of the alphabet…letterpress printed with handset type and polymer plates on Mulberry paper treated with persimmon dye. Each page includes a knotted linen thread.
The alphabet is described here as
The string alphabet is formed by so knitting a cord, a ribbon, or the like, that the protuberances made upon it may be qualified by their shape, size, and situation, for signifying the elements of language
Below is a page from Macy’s book, followed by a closeup
