Talk:Great Lakes Algonquian syllabics

Title of this article
In the published literature, the subject matter of this article is generally referred to as the "Great Lakes Algonquian Syllabary." Specifically, I am thinking of the 1996 article by Ives Goddard in the Papers of the Twenty-Seventh Algonquian Conference entitled "Writing and Reading in Mesquakie (Fox)", and in the article "Native Writing Systems" by Willard Walker in Vol. 17 of the Handbook of North American Indians, and other articles by Walker as well. If you are interested in this topic, BTW, Goddard's article is excellent and worth reading.

My proposal is consistent with the syllabary in question having (according to the evidence which I will adduce in an enhancement of the article) originated with Potawatomi, and spreading to Fox / Sauk / Kickapoo. Speakers of Siouan language Ho-Chunk (aka Winnebago) subsequently adopted and adapted the syllabary when they encountered Fox users of the syllabary.

If you have an opinion, please comment here. This change is minor, but it does make the title more accurate and meaningful relative to its subject matter, and would make Wikipedia seem more, well, "encyclopedic."

Thanks. Jomeara421 (talk) 00:29, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Items Requiring Clarification
In preparation for an enhancement of the information in this article, the following items need to be clarified.

1. The second sentence includes Menominee as one of the languages whose speakers use the syllabary. All of the sources I have consulted make no mention of Menominee with respect to the syllabary. I would be surprised to learn that there is any documentation supporting this claim, but if there is it would be helpful if it can be provided.

2. The following sentence:
 * "Consonantal letter element alone can represent consonant value alone or consonant value with an inherent , thus making this syllabics system classified as an Abugida system."

Most information available on the syllabary in published sources does not support this assertion, and it definitely appears not to be true for Fox/Sauk/Kickapoo. This claim would need to be supported and argued for, particularly given the potential complexity of the issue, and the interest in determining how particular writing systems should be classified on e.g. the discussion page for Canadian Aboriginal syllabics.

3. If there is documentation of an actual Unicode decision to exclude the syllabary, or a general policy that would lead to its exclusion, citable information would be useful.

Thank you. John. Jomeara421 (talk) 00:55, 27 December 2008 (UTC)


 * On 3., I think it is an UniCode Consortium policy. I'll see if I could find their policy language that makes this system fail their checks, thus excluding this system. CJLippert (talk) 18:11, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Additions to this Article
Further components that can be expanded.

1. Likely French origin of orthography, including use of materials oriented to syllables in primers, etc;

2. More detailed discussion of representation of consonant clusters, sequences with one or more consonants plus , etc;

3. Verbal descriptions of distinctive characters, including contemporary modifications in direction of English;

4. Inclusion of reproduction of characters - Jones 1906 is now out of copyright and perhaps could be used;

5. Improved description of Winnebago syllabary, including how consonant clusters are handled;

6. Discussion of reading in syllabary (Goddard 1996 discusses this, based upon field research in 1990s);

7. Discussion of syllabic nature of system (e.g. practice involving recitation of syllabary rows, etc).

John Jomeara421 (talk) 04:49, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Dead Link
The link for "Potawatomi Syllabics" in the "External links" section is broken:

http://www.potawatomilang.org/Reference/Grammar/Orthography/writingsyst.html

It looks as if the domain name registration has expired. If there is a new location for this material (I've never seen it) it would be good to have an update.

Thanks. John Jomeara421 (talk) 05:17, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I've commented-out the dead link on the article for now. Will look to see if a different link could be provided. CJLippert (talk) 18:12, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I couldn't find a live link, but I did see that the Internet Archives page have retained the January 10, 2006, version of that page. I will un-comment-out that link and replace it with the archived URL, but the archived URL will need to be replaced with a live link. CJLippert (talk) 18:21, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Syllabary?
The article should really explain in more detail how this is a syllabary and not an alphabet. The way the letters and their phonetic readings are listed now does not indicate that at all; for example, k is said to stand for /g/ or /k/, not /ka/, /ko/.--91.148.130.233 (talk) 03:31, 15 April 2012 (UTC)


 * It is called a "syllabary" because each alphabetic element forms a syllable block, like Hangul, but while Hangul nests the alphabetic elements of the syllabary into a square cell, the GLAS is written linearly, with each syllable block separated by a half-space, period or a hyphen. CJLippert (talk) 18:36, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, that's very interesting (it should be stated in the article, of course). Is Hangul normally considered a syllabary at all, though? In general, when the syllable signs are formed in a predictable way from single segment signs, we don't usually call that a "syllabary", I think. We have something similar in abugidas, which aren't syllabaries either. And even abugidas appear to be more different from alphabets than the Lakes Algonquian system as you are describing it seems to be. I mean, if I be-gin to for-mat my wri-ting like this, sure-ly that i-sn't su-ffi-cient to turn the En-glish La-tin al-pha-bet in-to a sy-lla-ba-ry?--91.148.130.233 (talk) 01:26, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, yes! That IS the very definition of syllabary... if the glyph could never appear by their individual alphabetic elements. Also, the default vowel is "a" so " K " can be "ka" or "ga" in addition to "k-", "-k", "g-" or "-g", depending on context. Also, "A" is not the same as "a" as "a" is a vowel element of "a" while "A" is a medial consonant-modifying element, much like the w-dot or h-tick of the Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics. CJLippert (talk)
 * Hmm, OK, those last two features do make it a bit different from my hy-po-the-ti-cal Eng-lish "syl-la-ba-ry", but the first thing you said is certainly not the definition of a syllabary in my book. I quote from the lead of the article "syllabary" (which in turn cites Peter Daniels): "In a syllabary, there is no systematic similarity between the symbols which represent syllables with the same consonant or vowel." That's why Hangul is basically more like an alphabet with formatting sensitive to syllable structure, rather than a syllabary. That's also why Devanagari and other abugidas (also default vowel /a/, BTW) are not syllabaries. The Japanese Katakana and Hiragana are true syllabaries, as is the Cherokee writing system, because there is no similarity between "ka" and "ko". I guess I have to conclude that the use of the term "syllabary" is a traditional convention in this case. --91.148.130.233 (talk) 13:02, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Then, there are the odd tidbits, such as "I" is a consonantal element but "i" is a vowel element, vowel dots can be used instead of vowel elements, "H" is a modifier element similar to "A", and the script looks like all in minisuline Latin characters with the occasional majusculine "A", "H" and "I", and a very prominent small-capital " K ". CJLippert (talk) 15:58, 26 April 2012 (UTC)