There are somewhere around 7,000 languages in use today. That's a small sample of the 31,000 that are estimated to have existed over the course of human history. Language is a bedrock of human community and most of the time it's a group project. The sounds and

structures and rules that make up a language develop and evolve as people

communicate and they change as people move to new places with new ways of sharing information.

But every once in a while there's a single person who really takes charge of a language. I'm Michelle Cassidy, and this is Atlas Obscura,

a podcast about the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

Today, my fellow places editor Jonathan Carey and I are bringing you two stories about

people who took the creation of language into their own hands.

The first to meet a very real cultural need and the second to populate a world of escapist

fantasy. Jonathan's up first. Take it away. The As you're driving along the scenic route 360 through the town of Von Nor, Tennessee,

your eyes will notice a lonely museum nestled off in the countryside.

It's sure to catch the tension of even the weirdest of travelers.

Though unassuming, below the name of the building are several letters and symbols, not immediately

recognizable.

They need to let us curve and bend at strange angles.

Honestly, they look more like letters you would find in a

mathematic equation than anything readable.

However, quite the opposite is the case.

This museum preserves the legacy of an identity. the

opposite is the case. This museum preserves the legacy of an indigenous written language.

Welcome to the Sequoia Birthplace Museum.

Inside of various exhibits that feature more of this writing, but one exhibit is where

our story truly begins. Next to a 19th century printing press is a diarrama of a man traveling.

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