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About the Author
Abraham Giliana, founder of Atuta
My name is Abraham Giliana and I am the designer and developer of this site: www.AssyrianSchool/Weebly.com. The eldest of seven, I was born in 1953 in Tehran to an Assyrian family, Ishay Giliana and Sara Arsanus. At the age of six I entered the Assyrian-Chaldean Catholic school of Behnam and at 10 I joined the Catholic seminary to become a priest.
In 1964 the metropolitan of Iran, St. John (Youkhanan) Isäii purchased a printing facility including a full set of Assyrian type (atwati) and I, under the management of Rabi Kurosh Benyamin started to typeset books and Assyrian publications. It was love at first sight!
I was so fascinated with the art of typesetting and printing, that by the age of seventeen I decided that the priesthood was not for me and left the seminary and indulged myself into the Assyrian printing business.
During my highschool years in Tehran, I worked with different Assyrian printing companies and organizations such as the Assyrian Cultural Organization (See'ta Sepreta d' Aturaiy), Assyrian newsletter "Atour" located in "Tchäp-é-Khooshé" founded by Dr. Wilson Bet-Mansour, Assyrian Presbyterian Church (in Ameer-Abaad).
I also taught the Assyrian language for different groups and organizations such as, Assyro-Chaldean Youth Club of Behnam, St. Mary's Church of the Assyrian Apostolic Catholic Church of the East in Sarbaz Avenue, Shushan (Susan) school.
I am especially proud of three nuns in St. Joseph Catholic Church in Tehran as my students which there first language was Belgian. In about six months, they became fluent in reading, writing and speaking in Assyrian and very good in grammar.
In 1980 I left Iran. I lived in Athens, Greece for six months and in February 1981 I moved to Chicago, Illinois in the United States of America.
In 1994, when Windows© platform was new, there was no software available for typing in our language. Eager about publishing Assyrian books, I came up with the idea of "Atuta, the Assyrian Font for Windows©", with the help of Rabi Issa Benyamin, the legendary Assyrian calligrapher, I designed my first three fonts and started typesetting and printing in Assyrian. With this system, I could type in Assyrian using English language software such as PageMaker©, PhotoShop©, CorelDraw©, Adobe Illustrator© and PrintMaster©. The fonts I created were (are) based on the English characters, so the computer sees them as any other English fonts. We can take advatage of this fact that whatever we can do with the English language, we can implement it into Atuta fonts. In other words, you type in Assyrian as you would do in English. One of the publications that still uses the Atuta fonts is in Chicago, the newsletter "The Voice From the East" published under the supervision of His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV, the patriarch of the Assyrian Apostolic Catholic Church of the East.
Now, I live in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. with my wife, Belinda and my daughter, Stephanie. I enjoy working with the Assyrian language and strive to teach it to my people, the Assyrians.
In the old days, it was said that if we were fluent in Assyrian, we were good candidates for priesthood! Now we know that is not true; there are thousands of books written and waiting to be written in our language other than the Holy Bible that we can enjoy, and we don't have to be a clergy to enjoy our language. Perhaps just for this reason so many people have turned from learning it.
With the help of this website, I hope our fellow Assyrians will find new treasures in our literature and in our mother's tongue, sweet Assyrian.
In 1964 the metropolitan of Iran, St. John (Youkhanan) Isäii purchased a printing facility including a full set of Assyrian type (atwati) and I, under the management of Rabi Kurosh Benyamin started to typeset books and Assyrian publications. It was love at first sight!
I was so fascinated with the art of typesetting and printing, that by the age of seventeen I decided that the priesthood was not for me and left the seminary and indulged myself into the Assyrian printing business.
During my highschool years in Tehran, I worked with different Assyrian printing companies and organizations such as the Assyrian Cultural Organization (See'ta Sepreta d' Aturaiy), Assyrian newsletter "Atour" located in "Tchäp-é-Khooshé" founded by Dr. Wilson Bet-Mansour, Assyrian Presbyterian Church (in Ameer-Abaad).
I also taught the Assyrian language for different groups and organizations such as, Assyro-Chaldean Youth Club of Behnam, St. Mary's Church of the Assyrian Apostolic Catholic Church of the East in Sarbaz Avenue, Shushan (Susan) school.
I am especially proud of three nuns in St. Joseph Catholic Church in Tehran as my students which there first language was Belgian. In about six months, they became fluent in reading, writing and speaking in Assyrian and very good in grammar.
In 1980 I left Iran. I lived in Athens, Greece for six months and in February 1981 I moved to Chicago, Illinois in the United States of America.
In 1994, when Windows© platform was new, there was no software available for typing in our language. Eager about publishing Assyrian books, I came up with the idea of "Atuta, the Assyrian Font for Windows©", with the help of Rabi Issa Benyamin, the legendary Assyrian calligrapher, I designed my first three fonts and started typesetting and printing in Assyrian. With this system, I could type in Assyrian using English language software such as PageMaker©, PhotoShop©, CorelDraw©, Adobe Illustrator© and PrintMaster©. The fonts I created were (are) based on the English characters, so the computer sees them as any other English fonts. We can take advatage of this fact that whatever we can do with the English language, we can implement it into Atuta fonts. In other words, you type in Assyrian as you would do in English. One of the publications that still uses the Atuta fonts is in Chicago, the newsletter "The Voice From the East" published under the supervision of His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV, the patriarch of the Assyrian Apostolic Catholic Church of the East.
Now, I live in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. with my wife, Belinda and my daughter, Stephanie. I enjoy working with the Assyrian language and strive to teach it to my people, the Assyrians.
In the old days, it was said that if we were fluent in Assyrian, we were good candidates for priesthood! Now we know that is not true; there are thousands of books written and waiting to be written in our language other than the Holy Bible that we can enjoy, and we don't have to be a clergy to enjoy our language. Perhaps just for this reason so many people have turned from learning it.
With the help of this website, I hope our fellow Assyrians will find new treasures in our literature and in our mother's tongue, sweet Assyrian.
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Author,
Abraham Giliana |