Great Lakes Algonquian Syllabary - Possible Ottawa Use of The Syllabary

Possible Ottawa Use of The Syllabary

Some comments by Ottawa speaker Andrew J. Blackbird “…in which he recalls his father Mackadepenessy ‘making his own alphabet which he called ‘Paw-pa-pe-po’” and teaching it to other Ottawas from the L'Arbre Croche village on the Lower Peninsula of Michigan have been interpreted as suggesting use of a syllabic writing system by Ottawas earlier in the nineteenth century, although Blackbird was not himself a user of the syllabary. Blackbird’s Ottawa writings use a mixture of French and English-based characteristics, but not those of Great Lakes syllabary. There are no known Odawa texts written in the syllabary.

It has been suggested that Blackbird’s father may been referring to a separate orthography developed by French Roman Catholic missionaries and spread by missionary August Dejean, who arrived at L'Arbre Croche, Michigan in 1827, and wrote a primer and catechism in an orthography similar to that used by other French missionaries.