What is "Atuta"
Literally, in Assyrian language, "Atuta" means letter, font or an alphabet character; the smallest unit and the element of writing.
Hello. My name is Abraham Giliana, and I am the founder of "Atuta". I was born in Tehran, Iran in January 1953 from an Assyrian Christian family: Ishay Giliana and Sara Arsanus. I spent my first 9 of 12 years of school in the Catholic school of "Behnam", where at the age of ten attended the seminary school being prepared to be a priest. At the age of sixteen I realized the priesthood was not for me and I left the seminary school.
At the age of twelve, Mgr. Youkhannan (John) Isaii, the principle of the school purchased the facilities for typesetting and printing Assyrian books. Under the management of late Rabi Koorish Benyamin, I was introduced to "Atwati", the Assyrian type. It was love at first sight! I already loved my mother's language, Assyrian, and when I saw how the letters were set beside each other creating pages and books, I was fascinated so much, that after that, I eliminated playing with kids, getting involved in any activity, and later on, I left church and I dedicated myself to "Atwati" and became a professional typesetter and printer.
From the beginning, I went through the process of typesetting the books, taking the pages to the print shops, printing and binding them. The one step that was the most difficult, was the typesetting itself for lack of type. Those days, in mid sixties, the type was made out of alloy of lead and copper, and was expensive and hard to obtain. Basically, we had to wait for our turn to get to the factory have them made. And when we gave them the list of how much type we needed, they would give us four, five or more times than what we had ordered, and we had to pay for them. They had no competition, and our "mold of the type" was with them. Besides, every time we purchased the type, they became softer and more expensive; the manufacturer would add more lead than what the original formula asked for, so the type would become softer and wear out quicker. The problem was that the church was not making money out of the print shop, it had a small budget for printing and publications.
Other than the Catholic church, I typeset for other Assyrian churches, the Assyrian Cultural Center, the newsletter "Atour" owned by Dr. Wilson Bet-Mansur who was the two-term Assyrian congressman in the seventies. The famous series of Rabi Koorish Benyamin's "Lishanid Yimma-- Atour, the Mother's language" were basically typeset by me besides hundreds of books and publications in different print shops in Tehran. That was how I learned the grammar of our language and felt closer to it. I taught the Assyrian language in various churches and organizations including "Shushan School" and Youth Organization of Behnam School.
One thought was always on my mind—to eliminate the problem of lack of "type—Atwati". It would take another thirty years to achieve that goal, when the PC's and Windows® were introduced in the 80's and consequently In 1994, in Chicago, while I was working part-time as a typesetter, I was anxious and curious to print in Assyrian. A printer, a friend of mine, named John, who was born in India, told me that I could typeset in Assyrian language in Windows® only if I had the "Assyrian fonts" and he showed me how to design them in program "CorelDraw". The rest is history. I met with my old time friend Mr. Issa Benyamin, took three of his beautiful fonts and started the project "Atuta, the Assyrian Fonts for Windows" or "Atuta". Today, I have fourteen different Assyrian fonts that work with various Windows® programs and available on CD named "Atuta 2008". It can be purchased here on line $50.00.
You can leave me a message on "Contact Us" page, and I will answer you promptly.
At the age of twelve, Mgr. Youkhannan (John) Isaii, the principle of the school purchased the facilities for typesetting and printing Assyrian books. Under the management of late Rabi Koorish Benyamin, I was introduced to "Atwati", the Assyrian type. It was love at first sight! I already loved my mother's language, Assyrian, and when I saw how the letters were set beside each other creating pages and books, I was fascinated so much, that after that, I eliminated playing with kids, getting involved in any activity, and later on, I left church and I dedicated myself to "Atwati" and became a professional typesetter and printer.
From the beginning, I went through the process of typesetting the books, taking the pages to the print shops, printing and binding them. The one step that was the most difficult, was the typesetting itself for lack of type. Those days, in mid sixties, the type was made out of alloy of lead and copper, and was expensive and hard to obtain. Basically, we had to wait for our turn to get to the factory have them made. And when we gave them the list of how much type we needed, they would give us four, five or more times than what we had ordered, and we had to pay for them. They had no competition, and our "mold of the type" was with them. Besides, every time we purchased the type, they became softer and more expensive; the manufacturer would add more lead than what the original formula asked for, so the type would become softer and wear out quicker. The problem was that the church was not making money out of the print shop, it had a small budget for printing and publications.
Other than the Catholic church, I typeset for other Assyrian churches, the Assyrian Cultural Center, the newsletter "Atour" owned by Dr. Wilson Bet-Mansur who was the two-term Assyrian congressman in the seventies. The famous series of Rabi Koorish Benyamin's "Lishanid Yimma-- Atour, the Mother's language" were basically typeset by me besides hundreds of books and publications in different print shops in Tehran. That was how I learned the grammar of our language and felt closer to it. I taught the Assyrian language in various churches and organizations including "Shushan School" and Youth Organization of Behnam School.
One thought was always on my mind—to eliminate the problem of lack of "type—Atwati". It would take another thirty years to achieve that goal, when the PC's and Windows® were introduced in the 80's and consequently In 1994, in Chicago, while I was working part-time as a typesetter, I was anxious and curious to print in Assyrian. A printer, a friend of mine, named John, who was born in India, told me that I could typeset in Assyrian language in Windows® only if I had the "Assyrian fonts" and he showed me how to design them in program "CorelDraw". The rest is history. I met with my old time friend Mr. Issa Benyamin, took three of his beautiful fonts and started the project "Atuta, the Assyrian Fonts for Windows" or "Atuta". Today, I have fourteen different Assyrian fonts that work with various Windows® programs and available on CD named "Atuta 2008". It can be purchased here on line $50.00.
You can leave me a message on "Contact Us" page, and I will answer you promptly.