Muscogee Language - Orthography

Orthography

The traditional Muscogee alphabet was adopted by the tribe in the late 1800s. There are 20 letters.

Although it is based on the Latin script, some of the sounds are vastly different from those in English — in particular those represented by c, e, i, r, and v. Here are the (approximately) equivalent sounds using familiar English words and the IPA:

Spelling Sound (IPA) English equivalent
a aː ~ a like the "a" in father
c tʃ ~ ts like the "ch" in such or the "ts" in cats
e ɪ like the "i" in hit
ē like the "ee" in seed
f f like the "f" in father
h h like the "h" in hatch
i ɛ ~ ɛj like the "ay" in day
k k like the "k" in risk
l l like the "l" in look
m m like the "m" in moon
n n like the "n" in moon
o oː ~ ʊ ~ o like the "o" in bone or the "oo" in book
p p like the "p" in sap
r ɬ a sound which does not occur in English. This is often
represented as "hl" or "tlh" in non-Creek texts. The sound
is made by blowing air around the sides of the tongue
while pronouncing English "l"; it is identical to Welsh ll
s s like the "s" in spot
t t like the "t" in stop
u ʊ ~ o like the "oo" in book or the "oa" in boat
v ə ~ a like the "a" in about
w w like the "w" in wet
y j like the "y" in yet

There are also three vowel sequences, whose spellings match their phonetic makeup:

Spelling Sound (IPA) English equivalent
eu similar to the exclamation "ew!". A combination of the Creek sounds represented by e and u
ue like the "oy" in boy
vo aʊ ~ əʊ like the "ow" in how

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