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From: librik@netcom.com (David Librik)
Subject: Re: Eskimo Script
Message-ID: <librikDr15MI.10F@netcom.com>
Organization: Icy Waters Underground, Inc.
References: <318B57B2.61F6@jarnold.demon.co.uk> <rte-0605961350440001@mac-118.lz.att.com>
Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 10:11:06 GMT
Lines: 51
Sender: librik@netcom12.netcom.com

rte@elmo.lz.att.com (Ralph T. Edwards) writes:

>In article <318B57B2.61F6@jarnold.demon.co.uk>, John Arnold
><jarnold@jarnold.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>> While I was at the excellent museum of American cultures (or was it 
>> the Canadian national gallery) at Ottawa last year, I saw several Eskimo 
>> exhibits which had some sort of script on them, unlike anything I have 
>> seen before.  But I could find no more information.
>> 
>> Does anyone know anything about this script? How old is it? What's it 
>> used for? Is it still used?
>> 
>> Thanks in advance for satisfying my idle curiosity.
>> John Arnold

>I was at the same exhibit and quizzed a curator about the script.  He
>fished out a key to the script, which showed it was a consonant-vowel
>syllabary, which answered my question, why would a missionary invent an
>entirely new script?
>(Because it's more efficient to use a syllabary for languages with a small
>number of possible syllables.)

The Inuktitut (Eskimo) syllabary is derived from the Cree syllabary, which
is itself derived from the syllabary invented in 1836 by James Evans, an
English missionary who was sent to work among the Ojibwa.  Evans originally
designed the syllabic alphabet to let him write Ojibwe for hymnals and
Bible extracts, but it never caught on among that people.

The reason is suggested by your parenthetical paragraph.  Syllabaries
are best suited to languages with something close to simple Consonant +
Vowel syllables.  Ojibwe has many consonant clusters in its words.
(The Ojibwa people have since adopted the "double-vowel" writing system
which uses the Roman alphabet.)  Cree words are not quite so thick
with clusters (though here, too, the syllabary had to be modified with
"diacritic" characters to write vowelless consonants).  Inuit languages
fit the syllabic model even better.  I've been told that a related
alphabet is or was used among the Dene of Canada.

There does seem to have been a fashion towards inventing absolutely
logical, simplistic syllable-writing systems for American languages
around the mid-to-late 1800s.  Father Morice, who was attached to
a mission station in British Columbia, even proposed an Evans-style
syllabary to replace Sequoyah's Cherokee alphabet!

I believe Eric Brunner is working on character sets for Algonquian
languages, and so he may know even more about the history and current
use of the syllabics.

- David Librik
librik@cs.Berkeley.edu
