Syllabics

Before Tłı̨chǫ yatıı̀ was written with the Latin alphabet, a system known as 'syllabics' was used. The term 'syllabics' refers to a large family of related writing systems, used to write a variety of different Canadian Indigenous languages (most famously Cree and Inuktitut). The variety of syllabics used to write Tłı̨chǫ is largely borrowed from Chipewyan syllabics, which are themselves primarily an adaptation of Cree syllabics. As their name implies, 'letters' in syllabics generally represent entire syllables, rather than individual sounds. Each character represents a single consonant, and may be rotated in one of four possible orientations to indicate the vowel following it. Smaller, superscript characters can be used to indicate nasality and syllable-final 'h' sounds. Tone is not traditionally indicated in syllabics.

It is unclear precisely when Tłı̨chǫ people began writing using syllabics. The earliest syllabic texts from Chipewyan date from the 1860s, virtually all of which being religious texts written by European missionaries. Since the adoption of the Latin alphabet in the 1970s, syllabics have waned in use, and are highly uncommon today. Very few published texts Tłı̨chǫ syllabics exist, and descriptions of general spelling conventions are scant.

The following converter is able to convert text in the Tłı̨chǫ Latin alphabet into Tłı̨chǫ syllabics. You can type a word or sentence in the Tłı̨chǫ Latin alphabet in the upper box, and the text will be converted into syllabics in the lower box once you press the 'Convert' button.

Latin Alphabet

Syllabics

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