page_title: Canadian Aboriginal syllabics
section_title: Vowel transformations
hierarchical_section_title: Canadian Aboriginal syllabics / Basic principles / Vowel transformations
caption_attribution_description: A sign at Centennial Park in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, Canada with Ojibwe Syllabics. Text: Centennial Park ᑲᐃᔑᐊᓉᐱᓇᓂᐧᐊᐠ Non-roman text transliteration and translation: fully pointed as ᑳᐃᔑᐊᓉᐱᓈᓂᐗᐣᐠ (Gaa-izhi-anwebinaaniwang); unpointed as ᑲᐃᔑᐊᓉᐱᓇᓂᐧᐊᐠ; translated as "the place where people repose." The second ᐧ (w) is missing from the sign.
context_page_description: Canadian syllabic writing, or simply syllabics, is a family of abugidas created by James Evans to write a number of indigenous Canadian languages of the Algonquian, Inuit, and Athabaskan language families, which had no formal writing system previously. They are valued for their distinctiveness from the Latin script of the dominant languages and for the ease with which literacy can be achieved; indeed, by the late 19th century the Cree had achieved what may have been one of the highest rates of literacy in the world.
  Canadian syllabics are currently used to write all of the Cree languages from Naskapi to the Rocky Mountains, including Eastern Cree, Woods Cree, Swampy Cree and Plains Cree. They are also used to write Inuktitut in the eastern 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, where they are obsolete. Among the Athabaskan languages further to the west, syllabics have been used at one point or another to write Dakelh, Chipewyan, Slavey, Tłı̨chǫ and Dane-zaa.
context_section_description: 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 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 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 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 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.
caption: The orientation of a perfectly symmetrical vowel triangle may be difficult to discern. In the type of this Ojibwe sign, left-pointing a is an isosceles right-angled triangle, but upright i is acute-angled and isosceles.
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