Great Lakes Algonquian Syllabary

Great Lakes Algonquian syllabary (also called the Great Lakes Aboriginal syllabics) is the name given to a writing system that emerged during the nineteenth century and whose existence was first noted in 1880. The syllabary was originally used by speakers of several Algonquian languages south of the Great Lakes: Fox (also known as Meskwaki or Mesquakie), Sac (the latter also spelled Sauk), and Kickapoo, these three constituting closely related but politically distinct dialects of a single language for which there is no common term; in addition to Potawatomi. Use of the syllabary was subsequently extended to the Siouan language Ho-Chunk (also known as Winnebago). Use of the Great Lakes syllabary has also been attributed to speakers of the Ottawa dialect (also spelled Odawa) of the Ojibwe language, but supporting evidence is weak.

The Great Lakes syllabary is most accurately described as a syllabary that is based upon the characters of an alphabet. Consonant and vowel letters that comprise a syllable are grouped into units that are separated by spacing from adjacent units. The system is of interest to students of writing systems because it represents a case of an alphabetic system evolving into a syllabary.

The syllabary is unrelated to the Cree syllabary that was invented by James Evans to write Cree and extended to a number of other Canadian indigenous languages.

Since it resembles cursive Roman script, it has not been included in Unicode.