Why do only the Latin script when Nokia has a billion consumers?

Host: The conference hall was empty now — its lights dimmed, its stage stripped bare of microphones and screens. What remained was the faint hum of forgotten conversation and the soft glow of a projector still cycling through slides of fonts and alphabets.

On the large white wall, a serif “A” faded into a Tamil “அ,” then into an Arabic “ا.” Each symbol lingered briefly, ghostly, then dissolved into the next — a dance of forms, curves, and meaning.

Jack sat in the front row, a paper cup of cold coffee in his hand, staring up at the morphing letters. His grey eyes glimmered faintly with the same exhaustion one feels after watching a revolution in slow motion.

Jeeny entered quietly from the side door, her footsteps soft against the polished floor. She carried her laptop, still open, the faint blue glow lighting her face.

Jeeny: “Bruno Maag once asked, ‘Why do only the Latin script when Nokia has a billion consumers? Typography is the bedrock of communication; it can really connect people.’”

Host: The projector blinked, and the letters froze mid-transition — half Latin, half Devanagari, as if caught between worlds. Jack looked up, then chuckled softly.

Jack: “Connect people, huh? That’s quite a statement for something most people never even notice.”

Jeeny: sitting beside him “That’s the point. Typography is invisible — but it carries identity. It’s the skin of language.”

Jack: “The skin? Seems a little dramatic for fonts.”

Jeeny: “Not fonts — forms. Letters are how we see our thoughts. If you can’t write your language beautifully, you start to lose your voice.”

Host: The screen behind them flickered again. The Latin “a” curved into a Bengali “অ,” then a Hebrew “א.” The shapes glowed faintly, like spirits of civilizations whispering to one another.

Jack: “So you’re saying a typeface can hold culture.”

Jeeny: “Yes. It’s more than design — it’s heritage. Every curve in a Tamil vowel, every dot in Arabic, every line in Mandarin — they’re centuries of memory. But corporations ignore that. They pick the easiest alphabet to print, not the most human one.”

Jack: “You mean they pick the one the market reads.”

Jeeny: nods “Exactly. And that’s how cultural extinction begins — not with war, but with default settings.”

Host: The air grew still. The faint hum of the projector filled the silence, steady as breath.

Jack: “You make it sound like colonization by typeface.”

Jeeny: gently “Isn’t it? When every phone, every billboard, every screen speaks in Helvetica or Arial, what happens to the rest of the world’s letters? The ones born in ink and carved in stone? They fade.”

Jack: “You think typography can really connect people? Most of us just pick what looks clean.”

Jeeny: “That’s the tragedy, Jack. Clean isn’t neutral. Clean usually means Western. And when we call it universal, we erase the handwriting of a billion others.”

Host: Jack leaned back, his jaw tightening. His eyes drifted to the screen again, where the next slide showed the Nokia logo — its letters sharp, cold, and unmistakably Latin.

Jack: “I remember when phones only had English characters. My friend’s mother used to text in Hindi, but she had to spell it out in English. It looked wrong — like her words were wearing someone else’s clothes.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s what Bruno was fighting against. He wasn’t just designing fonts — he was designing dignity.”

Host: Her voice was calm, but it carried heat beneath its softness. The projector cast her shadow onto the wall — a silhouette beside the alphabet, like a living letter of defiance.

Jack: “You ever think about how much of the world we lose just because the software didn’t bother to include a script?”

Jeeny: nodding slowly “Yes. Think about Africa — hundreds of languages, barely a handful of digital typefaces. Think about indigenous scripts — written for centuries, now reduced to decorative art. When the letters die, so do the sounds. And when the sounds die, the people begin to vanish from history.”

Jack: “So typography isn’t just aesthetics. It’s survival.”

Jeeny: “It’s identity made visible. It’s proof we existed — and still do.”

Host: The screen changed again — now showing a quote from Bruno Maag himself, glowing faintly on the wall:
‘Letters are our ambassadors to the future.’

Jack read it aloud, his voice quieter now.

Jack: “Ambassadors. That’s beautiful. But also… kind of sad.”

Jeeny: “Why sad?”

Jack: “Because it means we’re already negotiating for our memory.”

Jeeny: after a long pause “Maybe that’s what art always is — negotiation between what’s lost and what’s left.”

Host: The light dimmed further. The projector cast only faint glimmers now, turning the room into an ocean of shadow.

Jeeny: “You know what typography really does, Jack? It gives sound a shape. Without it, language disappears into air.”

Jack: softly “So it’s music — just frozen.”

Jeeny: “Yes. And every culture hums in a different key.”

Host: They sat in silence then, the hum of the machine filling the space with an almost sacred rhythm. Outside, through the tall glass walls, the city flickered with signs — billboards, store names, glowing words in English, Mandarin, Arabic, Tamil — the visual chorus of a planet trying to speak to itself.

Jack: “You think someday we’ll have a world where every script gets equal space?”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “Only when people start seeing letters not as fonts — but as faces.”

Jack: “Faces?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Each script is a face of humanity — and you can’t understand the world if you keep looking at the same one.”

Host: The projector finally flicked off, plunging them into near-darkness. The afterimage of the last letter — an A turning into an अ — hovered briefly on the wall before fading.

Jack: quietly “Typography connects people, huh? Maybe Bruno was right. Maybe communication isn’t just about what we say — but how we let others say it.”

Jeeny: “And whether we give them the space to say it beautifully.”

Host: A long silence followed — the kind that felt less like emptiness and more like reverence. The city lights bled faintly into the room, casting lines of faint orange across their faces, like invisible alphabets written in shadow.

And in that quiet, beneath the hum of a sleeping projector and the heartbeat of a billion unsung languages, the truth lingered like ink that refused to fade:

Typography is not decoration. It is humanity written in form.

Every curve, every accent, every stroke is a reminder that no voice should vanish — not because it isn’t heard,
but because it wasn’t given the letters to speak.