Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics - History - Origins

Origins

Both Devanagari and Pitman played a role in the development of Cree syllabics. Devanagari provided the glyphs for the syllables, whereas Pitman provided the glyphs for the final consonants, as well as the idea of rotation and line weight to modify the syllables.

In the original Evans script, there were ten syllabic forms: eight for the consonants p, t, c, k, m, n, s, y; a ninth for vowel-initial syllables or vowels following one of the incidental consonants; and a tenth, which is no longer in use, for the consonant cluster sp. There were four incidental consonants, r, l, w, h, which did not have syllabic forms. Except for sp, these can all be traced to the cursive combining forms of the corresponding Devanagari akshara; the Devanagari combining form is somewhat abbreviated (the right-side stroke is dropped), and in handwriting the running horizontal line may be left off as well, as has been standardized in Gujarati. (The sequence sp appears to be a conflation of the shape of s with the angularity of p, along the conceptual lines of the more contracted ligatures of Devanagari such as क्ष.)

The likeness is stronger if one allows the symbols to rotate to give a similar direction of writing for each vowel; for example, Devanagari n has the orientation of ne rather than of na. The motivation for the change of orientation appears to have been to allow the pen to trace the same direction when writing syllables with the same vowels: The reflection class ka, ca, ma, sa, ya (that is, the consonants that are flipped to distinguish the front i, e vowels) all follow an L-like path, whereas the rotation class a, pa, ta, na (those rotated for the front vowels) all follow a C-like path. The orientation of Devanagari g- (for k-), n-, y-, and possibly s- had to be flipped for this to happen. (Sp- does not follow this generalization, reflecting its hybrid origin.)

Because Cree consonants can be either voiced or voiceless, depending on their environment, each corresponds to two Devanagari letters, and Cree ka/ga, for example, resembles Devanagari g rather than k. Note also that h, which only occurs as a final in syllabics, appears to derive from the Devanagari visarga, ः ḥ, which also occurs only as a final, rather than from syllabic ह ha.

Devanagari source of initial and independent consonants
Devanagari & half forms Cree
Syllables
pa प्‍ pa/ba
ţa ट‍ ta/da
ja ज्‍ cha/ja
ga ग्‍ ko/go
ma म्‍ ma
na न्‍ ne
sa स्‍ sa*
ya य्‍ yo
Incidental consonants
la ल्‍ -l
ra र्‍ -r
va/wa व्‍ -w
-h -h
*Cursive स is more similar to ᓴ, looking rather like म m.

It is possible that -l and -r were derived through rotation from one Devanagari glyph, in the spirit of Pitman, where l and r are related in this way, rather than from the two different glyphs suggested by the table.

In contrast, the final consonants p t c k m n s and y (which Evans called "final i"), which are now only used for Western Cree, derive from Pitman shorthand. The linear glyphs ᑊ ᐟ ᐨ ᐠ p t c k are rotated 45° from Pitman ᐠ ᑊ ᐟ ᐨ p t c k, but keep their relative orientations intact; the lunate glyphs ᒼ ᐣ ᐢ m n s are rotated 90° from Pitman ᐢ ᓑ ᐣ m n s. The Cree "final i" was originally a dot, as was the diacritic for the vowel i in Pitman.

Pitman source of final consonants
Final Pitman Cree
-p
-t
-c
-k
-m
-n
-s
-i (-y) ˙ ˙

The final hk, however, is ᕽ, a small version of the logogram for Christ, from Greek Χ kh.

The use of rotation to change the vowel of a syllable is unique to Canadian syllabics, but had its antecedent in shorthand. Pitman used rotation to change place of articulation: plosives p t ch k, nasals m n, and fricatives h s sh f th were all related through rotation, as can be partially seen in the table of finals above.

Initially, Evans indicated vowel length with light versus heavy lines – the feature used to indicate voicing in Pitman; – but this proved awkward in print, and by 1841 it was changed to broken lines for long vowels versus solid lines for short vowels. Later Evans introduced the current practice of writing a dot above the syllable to indicate vowel length.

Read more about this topic:  Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics, History

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