Ojibwe writing systems have been claimed to have existed for over a millennium. However, very little of the ancient writing survives to this day. Instead, Ojibwe is written using a syllabary, which is usually said to have been developed by missionary James Evans around 1840 and based on Pitman's Shorthand . In the United States, the language is most often written phonemically with Roman characters. Syllabics are primarily used in Canada. The newest Roman character-based writing system is the Double Vowel system, devised by Charles Fiero . Although there is no standard orthography, the Double Vowel system is quickly gaining popularity among language teachers in the United States and Canada because of its ease of use.
OJIBWE "HIEROGLYPHICS"
Not much is know regarding the Ojibwe "Hieroglyphics". Similar to the text of the Walam Olum of the Lenape (Delaware peoples) and of various Mi'kmaq Hieroglyphic Writing , they are found as Petroglyphs , on story-hides, and on MidewiwinTeaching Scrolls . In treaty negotiations with the British, the treaty-signing chiefs would often mark an "X" for their signature and then use the Ojibwe "Hieroglyphic" character representing their Doodem . Today, Ojibwe artists commonly incorporate motifs found in the Ojibwe "Hieroglyphics" to instill "Native Pride."
ROMANIZED OJIBWE SYSTEMS
Modern Roman orthographies
Fiero double vowel system
The newest Roman character-based writing system is the Double Vowel system, devised by Charles Fiero during the 1950 s. Although there is no standard orthography for Ojibwe, the Fiero Double Vowel system (or simply the "Double Vowel system") is quickly gaining popularity among language teachers in the United States and Canada because of its ease of use. During the 1990 s, Ojibwe language educators agreed upon the use of the Double Vowel system for the purposes of international communication.
This system is called "Double Vowel" from the fact that the long vowel correspondences to the short vowels , and are written with a doubled value. In this system, the nasal "ny" as a final element is instead written as "nh." The allowable consonant clusters are , , , , , , , , , and .
The PostalveolarAffricate s and are written and , and the postalveolar Fricative s and are written and . The postalveolar Semivowel /j/ is written , and the Velar semivowel is written . In the Double Vowel system, LenisObstruent s are written using voiced characters (e.g. , , , etc.), and Fortis ones using voiceless characters (e.g., , , , etc.). The Glottal Stop , , is transcribed <'>.
Double Vowel Roman treats digraphs as a distinct sound element, and thus would parse them accordingly. The resulting alphabetical order for the Fiero Double Vowel Roman is:
:a aa b ch d e g ' h i ii j k m n (nh) ny o oo p s sh t w y z zh
Rhodes Double Vowel system
The Rhodes Double Vowel system, a minor variation of the Fiero Double Vowel system, is popular in Michigan and Southeastern Ontario, often characterized by loss of short vowels due to the syncopated accenting of the words. In this system, glottal stop is transcribed as . Since vowel syncope occurs frequently with the Odawa and Eastern Ojibwe dialects, which employ this system, additional consonant clusters are allowed. As a result of syncope, this system uses <'> to represent a vowel lost during syncope which otherwise may create a confusing consonant clustering, such as to distinguish from . Also, a sub-positional dot under and a super-positional dot over are used to represent and lost during syncope but where some speakers still colour their consonants with a very slight /ɰ/. Unlike the Fiero Double Vowel system, the Rhodes Double Vowel system do not make parsing considerations for the diglyphs. Consequently, the alphabetical order is:
:' a b c d e g (ġ) h i j k (k̩) m n o p s t w y z
Saulteaux-Cree Roman system
The Saulteaux-Cree Roman system is based on the Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics . This system is found in northern Ontario, southern Manitoba and southern Saskatchewan. Compared to the Fiero or Rhodes Double Vowel systems, long vowels, including , are shown with either Macron or Circumflex diacritic marks, depending on the community's standards. Though syncope is not a common feature with Saulteaux, the occasional vowel loss is indicated with a <'>. Nasaled vowels are generally not marked. The resulting alphabetical order is:
:' a â c ê h i î k m n o ô p s š t w y
Hybrid system
The Hybrid system is found in northern Ontario. Generally, this sytem use the same consonant scheme as the Saulteaux-Cree Roman system, but without the use of diacritics. This results in the use of instead of <š> and the use of double vowels to represent long vowels.
Algonquin Roman system
Unlike the other Roman systems modeled after English, the Algonquin Roman system is instead modeled after French. Its most striking features are the use of circumflex diacritics over the long vowels, and written as and , and and are written as and .
Correspondence Chart of the Popular Roman systems
Folk Spelling
Folk spelling of Anishinaabemowin is not a system, per se, as it varies from person to person writing speech into script. Each writer employing folk spelling would write out the word as how the speaker himself would form the words. Depending on if the reference sound representation is based on English or French, a word may be represented using common reference language sound representation, thus better able to reflect the vowel or consonant value. However, since this requires the knowledge of how the speaker himself speaks, folk spelling quickly becomes difficult to read for those individuals not familiar with the writer.
Historical Roman orthographies
Evans system
, but was unable to get its printing sanctioned by the British And Foreign Bible Society . Evans continued to use his Ojibwe writing system in his work in Ontario. However, his students appear to have had conceptual difficulties working with the same alphabet for two different languages with very different sounds. Furthermore, the structure of the Ojibwe language made most words quite long when spelled with Roman Letters , and Evans himself found this approach awkward. His book also noted differences in the Ojibwe dialectual field. The "default" dialect was the Ojibwemowin spoken at Rice Lake, Ontario (marked as "RL"). The other two were Credit, Ontario, (marked as "C") and areas to the west (marked as "W").
Evans' Ojibwe writing system recognized short and long vowels, but did not distinguish between lenis and fortis consonants. Another distinct character of Evans system was the use of and to serve both as a consonant and vowel. As vowels, they served as /i/ and /o/ while as consonants, they served as /j/ and /ɰ/. The system distinguished long vowels from short vowels by doubling the short vowel value. Evans also used three diacritics to aid the reader in pronunciation. He used a Macron (¯) over a vowel or vowels to represent nasals () and Diaersis (¨) over the vowel to indicate a Glottal Stop (); if the glottal stop was final, he duplicated the vowel and would place a Circumflex (ˆ) over the duplicated vowel. "Gladness," for example, was written as ''buubenandumooen'' (''baapinendamowin'' in the Fiero system).
Evans eventually abandoned his Ojibwe writing system and formulated what would eventually become the Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics . His Ojibwe Syllabics parsing order was based on his Romanized Ojibwe.
His work ''A Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language, explained in English'' is still considered the best reference regarding the Ojibwe vocabulary. In his dictionary, grammar books and prayer book, the sound representations of Ojibwe are shown in the table below. There has also been discussion regarding if Baraga represented nasal. In his earlier editions of the dictionary, circumflex accents were used to indicate nasals but in his later editions, they appear to instead either represent long vowels or stressed vowels, believed to be changed by the editor of his dictionary.
Cuoq system
Jean André Cuoq was a missionary to the Algonquin and the Iroquois . He wrote several grammar books, hymnals, a catechism and his premier work ''Lexique de la Langue Algonquine'' in 1886, focusing on the form of Anishinaabemowin spoken among the Algonquin . His published works regarding the Algonquin Language used basic sounds, without differentiating the consonant strengths or vowel lengths. However, unlike Baraga, Cuoq further broke words down to their root forms and clarified ambiguously defined words found in Baraga's dictionary.
Not part of the Unicode standard, thus not shown in the sample table above, is an obsolete set of syllabics form representing šp-series, or the sp-series in those communities where <š> have merged with . Originally this series looked like "Z" or "N" and had the same orientation scheme as ᔐ <še>, ᔑ, <ši> ᔓ <šo> and ᔕ <ša>. This obsolete set has been replaced with either ᔥᐯ/ᐡᐯ <špe>, ᔥᐱ/ᐡᐱ <špi>, ᔥᐳ/ᐡᐳ <špo> and ᔥᐸ/ᐡᐸ <špa> or by ᐢᐯ , ᐢᐱ , ᐢᐳ and ᐢᐸ .
Also, not shown are the alternate , written as a superscripted w-dot or w-ring, depending on if a medial or a final respectively, in words where have transformed into . In Evans' design, the y-dot was part of the original syllabics set, but due to ease of confusion between it and the w-dot in handwritten documents, most community abandoned the y-dot in favour of the y-cross (ᕀ), which is still being used among communities using Western Finals.
The Great Lakes Aboriginal Syllabics, also called the "Pa-Pe-Pi-Po Alphabet", used by the Odawa was similar to those used by the Potawatomi , with an added optional "H" used after the vowel element to represent long vowels.
