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73-663: Pangnirtung (or Pang , also Pangniqtuuq, in syllabics : ᐸᖕᓂᖅᑑᖅ IPA: [paŋniqtuːq] ) is an Inuit hamlet , in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of the Canadian territory of Nunavut , located on Baffin Island . The community is located about 45 km (28 mi) south of the Arctic Circle , and about 2,700 km (1,700 mi) from the North Pole . Pangnirtung is situated on

146-594: A Bible in Cree syllabics . By then, both Protestant and Catholic missionaries were using and actively propagating syllabic writing. Missionary work in the 1850s and 1860s spread syllabics to western Canadian Ojibwe dialects ( Plains Ojibwe and Saulteaux ), but it was not often used over the border by Ojibwe in the United States . Missionaries who had learned Evans' system spread it east across Ontario and into Quebec , reaching all Cree language areas as far east as

219-407: A contrasts with ᐋ â, and ᒥ mi contrasts with ᒦ mî . Although Cree ê only occurs long, the script made length distinctions for all four vowels. Not all writers then or now indicate length, or do not do so consistently; since there is no contrast, no one today writes ê as a long vowel. Reflecting the shorthand principles on which it was based, syllabics may be written plain , indicating only

292-620: A coastal plain at the coast of Pangnirtung Fjord, a fjord which eventually merges with Cumberland Sound . As of October 2024, the mayor is Stevie Komoartok. There is some confusion about the village name. Residents say the real name is Pangniqtuuq , which means "the place of many bull caribou". Early in 2005 residents voted against officially changing the name of the village to the native one, as Pangnirtung has achieved an international reputation. Its residents have created high-quality traditional arts in sculpture, as well as adaptation of themes and design in printmaking and weaving . Pangnirtung

365-523: A consonant and the next begins with a vowel, the intermediate consonant is written as a syllable with the following vowel. For example, the Plains Cree word pīhc-āyi-hk "indoors" has pīhc as its first morpheme, and āyi as its second, but is written ᐲᐦᒑᔨᕽ pīh-cā-yihk. In other cases, a "syllable" may in fact represent only a consonant, again due to the underlying structure of the language. In Plains Cree, ᑖᓂᓯ tānisi "hello" or "how are you?"

438-596: A few based on their pronunciation of Inuktitut , but it quickly became obvious that the number of basic sounds and the simple model of the syllable in the Evans system was inadequate to the language. With the assistance of Edwin Arthur Watkins , he dramatically modified syllabics to reflect these needs. In 1876, the Anglican church hired Edmund Peck to work full-time in their mission at Great Whale River , teaching syllabics to

511-647: A fur trading business headquartered in the city of Montreal in British North America from 1779 to 1821. It was merged into the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821. The enterprise continued as the Fur Trade Department, and then the Northern Stores Division of Hudson's Bay Company. In 1987, the division was acquired by a group of investors and in the 1990s it was relaunched as The North West Company. It

584-497: A large number of syllables; this made them quite long when written with the Latin script. He began to experiment with creating a more syllabic script that he thought might be less awkward for his students to use. In 1840, Evans was relocated to Norway House in northern Manitoba . Here he began learning the local Swampy Cree dialect. Like the closely related Ojibwe , it was full of long polysyllabic words. As an amateur linguist, Evans

657-541: A merchant in England; and now he acquired familiarity with the newly published Pitman shorthand of 1837. The local Cree community quickly took to this new writing system. Cree people began to use it to write messages on tree bark using burnt sticks, leaving messages out on hunting trails far from the mission. Evans believed that it was well adapted to Native Canadian languages, particularly the Algonquian languages with which he

730-510: A missionary. In the 1930s, Chief Fine Day of the Sweetgrass First Nation told Mandelbaum the following account: A Wood Cree named Badger-call died and then became alive again. While he was dead he was given the characters of the syllabary and told that with them he could write Cree. Strike-him-on-the-back learned this writing from Badger-call. He made a feast and announced that he would teach it to anyone who wanted to learn. That

803-469: A number of new forms to write the Blackfoot language . French Roman Catholic missionaries were the primary force for expanding syllabics to Athabaskan languages in the late 19th century. The Oblate missionary order was particularly active in using syllabics in missionary work. Oblate father Adrien-Gabriel Morice adapted syllabics to Dakelh , inventing a large number of new basic characters to support

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876-476: A population density of 188.5/km (488.1/sq mi) in 2021. Pangnirtung has a tundra climate ( Köppen : ET ; Trewartha : Ftkd ) with very short, cool summers and long, cold winters lasting almost the entire year. The community operates a turbot fishery. In 2008, the federal government budgeted for the construction of a harbour. Pangnirtung Fisheries Limited operates a packing plant to process local turbot catches. Founded in 1992 during peak summer operations

949-460: A press for him, believing that native literacy was something to be discouraged. Evans, with immense difficulty, constructed his own press and type and began publishing in syllabics. Evans left Canada in 1846 and died shortly thereafter. However, the ease and utility of syllabic writing ensured its continued survival, despite European resistance to supporting it. In 1849, David Anderson , the Anglican bishop of Rupert's Land , reported that "a few of

1022-534: A raised na-ga is placed before the g- series, ᖏ ᖑ ᖓ, to form an ng- ( /ŋ/ ) series, and a raised ra (uvular /ʁ/ ) is placed before syllables of the k- series, ᕿ ᖁ ᖃ, to form a uvular q- series. Although the forms of these series have two parts, each is encoded into the Unicode standard as a single character. The North West Company The company traces its history back to the North West Company ,

1095-516: A satellite backbone. The Qiniq network is designed and operated by SSI Micro . In 2017, the network was upgraded to 4G LTE technology, and 2G-GSM for mobile voice. The 2022 Canadian Inuit science fiction film Slash/Back was filmed in Pangnirtung. It was directed by Nyla Innuksuk in her feature debut, and starred largely local actors recruited for the film. Canadian Aboriginal syllabics Canadian syllabic writing , or simply syllabics ,

1168-407: A separate glyph, but abugidas , in which consonants are modified in order to indicate an associated vowel—in this case through a change in orientation (which is unique to Canadian syllabics). In Cree, for example, the consonant p has the shape of a chevron. In an upward orientation, ᐱ, it transcribes the syllable pi . Inverted, so that it points downwards, ᐯ, it transcribes pe . Pointing to

1241-577: A type of ink and then showed him how to write on white birch bark." He also received many teachings about the spirits which he recorded in a birch bark book. When the one good man returned to his people he taught them how to read and write. "The Cree were very pleased with their new accomplishment, for by now the white men were in this country. The Cree knew that the white traders could read and write, so now they felt that they too were able to communicate among themselves just as well as did their white neighbors." (Stevenson 21) Stevenson (aka Wheeler) comments that

1314-445: A voice speaking Calling Badger's name. Soon after, Calling Badger fell ill and the people heard he had passed away. During his wake three days later, while preparing to roll him in buffalo robes for the funeral, the people discovered that his body was not stiff like a dead person's body should be. Against all customs and tradition the people agreed to the widow's request to let the body sit one more night. The next day Calling Badger's body

1387-512: A vowel in joined morphemes, in couple grammatical words, or in pedagogical materials to indicate the consonant value following it is fortis .) The vowels fall into two sets, the back vowels -a and -u, and the front vowels -e and -i. Each set consists of a lower vowel , -a or -e, and a higher vowel, -u or -i. In all cases, back-vowel syllables are related through left-right reflection: that is, they are mirror images of each other. How they relate to front-vowel syllables depends on

1460-473: Is a family of writing systems used in a number of indigenous Canadian languages of the Algonquian , Inuit , and (formerly) Athabaskan language families. These languages had no formal writing system previously. They are valued for their distinctiveness from the Latin script and for the ease with which literacy can be achieved. For instance, by the late 19th century the Cree had achieved what may have been one of

1533-467: Is a sports and recreational centre. Like all Nunavut communities Pangnirtung is a fly-in community with no road access to the rest of Nunavut. Pangnirtung Airport provides the only viable means of access. There are gravel roads in the community and residents use SUV's, pickup trucks, 4-wheel ATV's and snowmobiles. Two churches can be found in Pangnirtung: Basic medical services are available at

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1606-419: Is about 65 km (40 mi) to the west. In 2009, the then Canadian Prime Minister , Stephen Harper , proposed building a new modern harbour in Pangnirtung to support the region's turbot -fishing industry. Harper received a warm welcome with many residents gathered at the airport to greet him. The town's 1,500 residents listened as Harper announced that $ 17 million worth of harbour construction promised in

1679-495: Is how I learned it. Badger-call also taught the writing to the missionaries. When the writing was given to Badger-call he was told 'They [the missionaries] will change the script and will say that the writing belongs to them. But only those who know Cree will be able to read it.' That is how we know that the writing does not belong to the whites, for it can be read only by those who know the Cree language. Fine Day's grandson Wes Fineday gave

1752-533: Is nicknamed the Switzerland of the Arctic , or simply Pang. The Inuit and their ancestors, Paleo-Eskimo , have inhabited the area for thousands of years, perhaps up to 4000 years. Their cultures became well-adapted to the climate and environment. Contact with European Canadians has been limited to less than the last century. In 1921, the Hudson's Bay Company established a trading post in Pangnirtung. Two years later,

1825-634: Is now a publicly traded company and is composed mainly of the old HBC Northern Stores Division. The Alaska Commercial Company , which makes up The North West Company's Alaskan operations, traced its roots back to the Russian-American Company . Cost-U-Less, which operates in Hawaii, the South Pacific and the Caribbean, was acquired in 2007. In 2017, 76% of Roadtown Wholesale Trading Ltd, which operates in

1898-531: Is protected by the 14-member Pangnirtung Fire Department. The fire service uses one pumper with one older reserve from one station. Policing is provided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Pangnirtung Detachment attached to V Division. Mini C , The North West Company (Northern Store), Pangnirtung Inuit Co-op and Co-op Express are the only local retailers and grocery options. KFC Express, Pizza Hut and Co-op Express are

1971-407: Is unrelated to other syllables with the same consonant or vowel. The original script, which was designed for Western Swampy Cree, had ten such letterforms: eight for syllables based on the consonants p- , t- , c- , k- , m- , n- , s- , y- (pronounced /p, t, ts, k, m, n, s, j/), another for vowel-initial syllables , and finally a blended form, now obsolete, for the consonant cluster sp- . In

2044-494: Is used for consonant clusters that begin with /s/: ᔌ spwa, ᔍ stwa, ᔎ skwa, and ᔏ scwa. The Cree languages the script was initially designed for had no such clusters. In Inuktitut, something similar is used not to indicate sequences, but to represent additional consonants, rather as the digraphs ch, sh, th were used to extend the Latin letters c, s, t to represent additional consonants in English. In Inuktitut,

2117-403: Is used for either a set of syllables with the same vowel, or a set with the same initial consonant. Thus the n-series is the set of syllables that begin with n, and the o-series is the set of syllables that have o as their vowel regardless of their initial consonant. A series of small raised letters are called "finals". They are usually placed after a syllable to indicate a final consonant, as

2190-588: Is we can tell you stories and if you listen to those stories in the sacred manner with an open heart, an open mind, open eyes and open ears, those stories will speak to you." In December 1959, anthropologist Verne Dusenberry, while among the Plains Cree on the Rocky Boy reservation in Montana , was told a similar narrative by Raining Bird: According to Raining Bird "the spirits came to one good man and gave him some songs. When he mastered them, they taught him how to make

2263-467: Is written as if it had three syllables. Because the first syllable has the stress and the syllable that follows has a short /i/ , the vowel is dropped. As a result, the word is pronounced "tānsi" with only two syllables. Syllabication is important to determining stress in Algonquian languages, and vice versa, so this ambiguity in syllabics is relatively important in Algonquian languages. The word "series"

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2336-500: The Inuit and translating materials into syllabics. His work across the Arctic is usually credited with the establishment of syllabics among the Inuit. With the support of both Anglican and Catholic missionary societies, by the beginning of the 20th century the Inuit were propagating syllabics themselves. In the 1880s, John William Tims , an Anglican missionary from Great Britain , invented

2409-484: The Naskapi . Attikamekw , Montagnais and Innu people in eastern Quebec and Labrador use Latin alphabets . In 1856, John Horden , an Anglican missionary at Moose Factory, Ontario , who adapted syllabics to the local James Bay Cree dialect, met a group of Inuit from the region of Grande Rivière de la Baleine in northern Quebec. They were very interested in adapting Cree syllabics to their language. He prepared

2482-450: The Pollard script , which is used to write various Hmong-Mien and Lolo-Burmese languages. Other missionaries were reluctant to use it, but it was rapidly indigenized and spread to new communities before missionaries arrived. A conflicting account is recorded in Cree oral traditions , asserting that the script originated from Cree culture before 1840. Per these traditions, syllabics were

2555-561: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police erected a permanent office. The first government-appointed teacher arrived in 1956. The first administrative office was established in 1962. Since then, numerous Inuit have achieved success with marketing their traditional arts. They transformed traditional drawing skills to produce lithographs and other forms of prints, allowing reproduction and wider distribution of their work. Other artists have made sculptures and carvings in local stone. Since

2628-466: The Unicode Consortium considers syllabics to be a "featural syllabary" along with such scripts as hangul , where each block represents a syllable, but consonants and vowels are indicated independently (in Cree syllabics, the consonant by the shape of a glyph, and the vowel by its orientation). This is unlike a true syllabary, where each combination of consonant and vowel has an independent form that

2701-518: The United States by communities that straddle the border. Cree syllabics were created in a process that culminated in 1840 by James Evans , a missionary, probably in collaboration with Indigenous language experts. Evans formalized them for Swampy Cree and Ojibwe . Evans had been inspired by the success of Sequoyah's Cherokee syllabary after encountering problems with Latin-based alphabets, and drew on his knowledge of Devanagari and Pitman shorthand . Canadian syllabics would in turn influence

2774-476: The orthography called for hyphens between the syllables of words, giving written Ojibwe a partially syllabic structure. However, his students appear to have had conceptual difficulties using the same alphabet for two different languages with very different sounds, and Evans himself found this approach awkward. Furthermore, the Ojibwe language was polysynthetic but had few distinct syllables, meaning that most words had

2847-426: The 1840 version, all were written with a light line to show the vowel was short and a heavier line to show the vowel was long: ᑲ ka , ᑲ kâ ; however, in the 1841 version, a light line indicated minuscules ("lowercase") and a heavier line indicated majuscules ("uppercase"): ᑲ ka , ᑲ KA or Ka ; additionally in the 1841 version, an unbroken letterform indicated a short vowel, but for a long vowel, Evans notched

2920-748: The British Virgin Islands was acquired. The French controlled much of what is now Canada in the early 1700s. As a result, their traders had a large fur trading network. After the conquest of New France by the British in 1763, French traders founded the North West Company and continued expanding their fur trade into the Canadian interior. The competition with the Hudson's Bay Company led to a massive environmental impact with numerous fur trade posts being built,

2993-566: The Canadian Arctic; there they are co-official with the Latin script in the territory of Nunavut . They are used regionally for the other large Canadian Algonquian language, Ojibwe , as well as for Blackfoot . Among the Athabaskan languages further to the west, syllabics have been used at one point or another to write Dakelh (Carrier), Chipewyan , Slavey , Tłı̨chǫ (Dogrib), and Dane-zaa (Beaver). Syllabics have occasionally been used in

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3066-652: The Health Centre. Four beds are available for assessment only, with advance care via medevac to Iqaluit . Pangnirtung is the nearest town (1 hour by boat) to Auyuittuq National Park and the location of one of two park offices, the other is in Qikiqtarjuaq . Located near to the Parks Canada office is the Angmarlik Visitor Centre. Iglunga , now uninhabited, is an Inuit hamlet, just south of Iglunga Island ,

3139-542: The Indians can read by means of these syllabic characters; but if they had only been taught to read their own language in our letters, it would have been one step towards the acquisition of the English tongue." But syllabics had taken root among the Cree (indeed, their rate of literacy was greater than that of English and French Canadians ), and in 1861, fifteen years after Evans had died, the British and Foreign Bible Society published

3212-594: The United States cities of Anchorage, Alaska , and Boca Raton, Florida . As of 2014 , the North West Company had 4,921 employees in Canada and 1,726 employees in its international operations in Alaska, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean. It was the largest employer of Indigenous People in the business sector. The company operates stores under these banners: Canadian operations International operations We Financial

3285-425: The basic consonant–vowel outline of speech, or pointed , with diacritics for vowel length and the consonants /w/ and /h/ . Full phonemic pointing is rare. Syllabics may also be written without word division , as Devanagari once was, or with spaces or dots between words or prefixes. The only punctuation found in many texts is spacing between words and ᙮ for a full stop. Punctuation from the Latin script, including

3358-472: The company has over 40 employees during peak season. Auyuittuq Lodge is the hamlet's only hotel, which comprises 25 rooms, shared facilities, a dining room, and a lounge. Power is supplied to Pangnirtung via standalone diesel generators operated by Qulliq Energy . Fuel is imported via tanker and stored in a tank farm near the Pangnirtung Airport . The purchase of diesel fuel is the responsibility of

3431-466: The extension of syllabics to languages it was not initially designed for. In some of the Athabaskan alphabets, finals have been extended to appear at mid height after a syllable, lowered after a syllable, and at mid height before a syllable. For example, Chipewyan and Slavey use the final ᐟ in the latter position to indicate the initial consonant dl ( /tɬ/ ). In Naskapi, a small raised letter based on sa

3504-450: The face of the type sorts , such that in print the letterform was broken. A handwritten variant using an overdot to indicate a long vowel is now used in printing as well: ᑕ ta , ᑖ tâ . One consonant, w , had no letterform of its own but was indicated by a diacritic on another syllable; this is because it could combine with any of the consonants, as in ᑿ kwa , as well as existing on its own, as in ᐘ wa . There were distinct letters for

3577-426: The first movable type for syllabics, he found that he could not satisfactorily maintain the distinction between light and heavy typeface for short and long vowels. He instead filed across the raised lines of the type, leaving gaps in the printed letter for long vowels. This can be seen in early printings. Later still a dot diacritic, originally used for vowel length only in handwriting, was extended to print: Thus today ᐊ

3650-465: The following account on CBC radio Morningside in two interviews in 1994 and 1998: Fineday the younger explained that Calling Badger came from the Stanley Mission area and lived ten to fifteen years before his grandfather's birth in 1846. On his way to a sacred society meeting one evening Calling Badger and two singers came upon a bright light and all three fell to the ground. Out of the light came

3723-436: The government established a weaving studio in 1970, many Inuit have learned to weave and are producing tapestries and other works that find an international market. In the 2021 Canadian census conducted by Statistics Canada , Pangnirtung had a population of 1,504 living in 396 of its 456 total private dwellings, a change of 1.6% from its 2016 population of 1,481. With a land area of 7.98 km (3.08 sq mi), it had

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3796-419: The government of Nunavut. Water, sewage, and garbage services are provided by the municipality of Pangnirtung. Water trucks fill up at a reservoir adjacent to the hamlet and deliver seven days a week. Sewage is pumped out and treated at the municipal treatment plant. Garbage is picked up five days a week and transported to a landfill that slowly deteriorates due to Arctic temperatures. For emergency services it

3869-440: The graphic form of the consonants. These follow two patterns. Symmetrical, vowel, p-, t-, sp-, are rotated 90 degrees (a quarter turn) counter-clockwise, while those that are asymmetrical top-to-bottom, c-, k-, m-, n-, s-, y-, are rotated 180 degrees (a half turn). The lower front-vowel ( -e ) syllables are derived this way from the low back-vowel ( a ) syllables, and the high front-vowel ( -i ) syllables are derived this way from

3942-447: The harbour include a fixed wharf , breakwater , marshalling area, sea lift ramp and a dredged channel and basin. The improvements will allow residents to unload their catches faster by allowing smaller crafts to dock easily and safely. The community has been served by the Qiniq network since 2005. Qiniq is a fixed wireless service to homes and businesses, connecting to the outside world via

4015-452: The higher back-vowel ( -u ) syllables. The symmetrical letter forms can be illustrated by arranging them into a diamond: And the asymmetrical letter forms can be illustrated by arranging them into a square: These forms are present in most syllabics scripts with sounds values that approach their Swampy Cree origins. For example, all scripts except the one for Blackfoot use the triangle for vowel-initial syllables. By 1841, when Evans cast

4088-440: The highest rates of literacy in the world. Syllabics are an abugida , where glyphs represent consonant–vowel pairs, determined by the rotation of the glyphs. They derive from the work of linguist and missionary James Evans . Canadian syllabics are currently used to write all of the Cree languages from including Eastern Cree , Plains Cree , Swampy Cree , Woods Cree , and Naskapi . They are also used to write Inuktitut in

4161-484: The interior of Canada being explored, and the beaver population being exhausted. The fur trade created conflict which increased tensions between the British, French and Indigenous People. The North West Company's head office is located in Winnipeg , Manitoba , Canada , built partly on the site of Upper Fort Garry . This building used to serve as the head office of the Hudson's Bay Company . It also operates two offices in

4234-586: The invention of Calling Badger ( Mistanaskowêw , ᒥᐢᑕᓇᐢᑯᐍᐤ ), a Cree man. Legend states that Badger had died and returned from the spirit world to share the knowledge of writing with his people. Some scholars write that these legends were created after 1840. Cree scholar Winona Stevenson explores the possibility that the inspiration for Cree syllabics may have originated from a near-death experience of Calling Badger. Stevenson references Fine Day cited in David G. Mandelbaum 's The Plains Cree who states that he learned

4307-472: The last two budgets would get under way in the fall of that year. Harper said the greatest potential for the hamlet's future lies in the inshore turbot fishery. The shortfalls of the previous harbour were a big problem for fishermen: When the tide ebbed, the harbour turned to mud. The work on the harbour was completed in September 2013. The entire project ended up costing about $ 40.5 million. The improvements to

4380-407: The left, ᐸ, it is pa, and to the right, ᐳ, po . The consonant forms and the vowels so represented vary from language to language, but generally approximate their Cree origins. Because the script is presented in syllabic charts and learned as a syllabary, it is often considered to be such. Indeed, computer fonts have separate coding points for each syllable (each orientation of each consonant), and

4453-684: The legend is commonly known among the Cree. However, there is no known surviving physical evidence of Canadian Aboriginal syllabics before Norway House . Linguist Chris Harvey believes that the syllabics were a collaboration between English missionaries and Indigenous Cree- and Ojibwe-language experts, Such as the Ojibwe Henry Bird Steinhauer (Sowengisik) and Cree translator Sophie Mason, who worked alongside Evans at his time in Norway House. Canadian "syllabic" scripts are not syllabaries , in which every consonant–vowel sequence has

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4526-415: The nine consonants -p , -t , -c , -k , -m , -n , -s , -y , and w when they occurred at the end of a syllable. In addition, four "final" consonants had no syllabic forms: -h , -l , -r , and the sequence -hk . These were originally written midline, but are now superscripted. (The glyph for -hk represents the most common final sequence of the language, being a common grammatical ending in Cree, and

4599-596: The only fast food restaurants in the hamlet. Perishable goods are shipped by air and all other items by sealift when waters are ice-free. Banking is done through the Co-op or money orders Gasoline for cars or snowmobiles is done at the Quickstop or the Co-op. There are two schools in Pangnirtung: Post secondary-studies opportunities can be made through Nunavut Arctic College 's Community Learning Centre. Aksayuk Arena

4672-460: The people, were to be used to write down the spirit languages, and for the Cree people to communicate among themselves. (Stevenson 20) When asked whether the story was meant to be understood literally, Wes Fineday commented: "The sacred stories ... are not designed necessarily to provide answers but merely to begin to point out directions that can be taken. ... Understand that it is not the work of storytellers to bring answers to you. ... What we can do

4745-528: The period (.), may also be used. Due to the final c resembling a hyphen, a double hyphen ⟨᐀⟩ is used as the Canadian Aboriginal syllabics hyphen. Some common terms as used in the context of syllabics The full-sized characters, whether standing for consonant-vowel combinations or vowels alone, are usually called "syllables". They may be phonemic rather than morphophonemic syllables. That is, when one morpheme (word element) ends in

4818-519: The radically more complicated phonetics of Athabaskan languages. Father Émile Petitot developed syllabic scripts for many of the Athabaskan languages of the Northwest Territories , including Slavey and Chipewyan . Cree influenced the design of the Pollard script in China. Cree oral traditions state that the script was gifted to the Cree through the spirit world, rather than being invented by

4891-545: The syllabary from Strikes-him-on-the-back who learned it directly from mistanâskowêw. In 1827, Evans, a missionary from Kingston upon Hull, England , was placed in charge of the Wesleyan mission at Rice Lake, Ontario . Here, he began to learn the eastern Ojibwe language spoken in the area and was part of a committee to devise a Latin alphabet for it. By 1837, he had prepared the Speller and Interpreter in English and Indian, but

4964-468: The ᕽ -hk in ᔨᕽ yihk above. However, the Cree consonant h, which only has a final form, begins a small number of function words such as ᐦᐋᐤ hāw. In such cases the "final" ᐦ represents an initial consonant and therefore precedes the syllable. The use of diacritics to write consonants is unusual in abugidas. However, it also occurs (independently) in the Lepcha script . Finals are commonly employed in

5037-663: Was acquainted with the Devanagari script used in British India ; in Devanagari, each letter stands for a syllable, and is modified to represent the vowel of that syllable. Such a system, now called an abugida , would have readily lent itself to writing a language such as Swampy Cree, which had a simple syllable structure of only eight consonants and four long or short vowels. Evans was also familiar with British shorthand, presumably Samuel Taylor's Universal Stenography , from his days as

5110-542: Was familiar. He claimed that "with some slight alterations" it could be used to write "every language from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains." Evans attempted to secure a printing press and new type to publish materials in this writing system. Here, he began to face resistance from colonial and European authorities. The Hudson's Bay Company , which had a monopoly on foreign commerce in western Canada, refused to import

5183-454: Was still not stiff so the old people began rubbing his back and chest. Soon his eyes opened and he told the people he had gone to the Fourth World, the spirit world, and there the spirits taught him many things. Calling Badger told the people of the things he was shown that prophesized events in the future, then he pulled out some pieces of birch bark with symbols on them. These symbols, he told

5256-449: Was unable to get its printing sanctioned by the British and Foreign Bible Society . At the time, many missionary societies were opposed to the development of native literacy in their own languages, believing that their situation would be bettered by linguistic assimilation into colonial society. Evans continued to use his Ojibwe orthography in his work in Ontario. As was common at the time,

5329-451: Was used for common -nk in Ojibwe.) The consonants -l and -r were marginal, only found in borrowings, baby talk, and the like. These, and -h , could occur before vowels, but were written with the final shape regardless. ( -l and -r are now written the size of full letters when they occur before vowels, as the finals were originally, or in some syllabics scripts have been replaced with full rotating syllabic forms; -h only occurs before

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