History and Origins
The origin and early development of the system is not known. In 1880 when first reported, use of the syllabary was indicated to be widespread among speakers of Fox and Sac. Some remarks by Potawatomi speakers suggest that the first Potawatomi usage was in approximately the same period.
Potawatomi does not have the phoneme /h/, and instead has a glottal stop /ʔ/ in places where Fox would have /h/. In Potawatomi the glottal stop is not represented in the syllabary, and in Fox /h/ is the only consonantal sound that is not represented. This anomaly in the inventory of consonant sounds has led to the suggestion that the syllabary was first used by speakers of Potawatomi, and subsequently transmitted to speakers of Fox, Sac, and Kickapoo. It would be otherwise difficult to explain why the /h/ sound is not included in the Fox versions of the syllabary even though the sound is not difficult to perceive, whereas the glottal stop, as in Potawatomi, often is.
Read more about this topic: Great Lakes Algonquian Syllabary
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