PBP Orthography ­ Footnotes

Potawatomi 
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belt Potawatomi Orthography Footnotes


Potawatomi dictionary
bode'wadmimo speak Potawatomi
nIshnabe'k The People
mzenegenek books
eagle aloft Orthography - rationale
Home page: news & updates
nizhokmake'wen resources/help
BWAKA - about us

1. Early Writing in Potawatomi

Here are a few examples of written Potawatomi. We will be adding more as we have time. Notice how different they are from each other, and consider what it would take to learn any of these systems.

Not that ours is so much better than any of these attempts. We actually borrow many ideas from several of these sources. We simply have tried to assess our contemporary audience, and then choose symbols that we think will be most/easiest used by them.

Examples

Lykins 
text

This example is from the first page of a biblical text, The Gospel According to Matthew and the Acts of the Apostles, translated by Johnston Lykins, published in 1844. It was printed for the purpose of evangelizing Potawatomis in the 19th century.

If you click on the image at right, you will go to our hypertext edition of Lykins' translation in his original orthography, which includes a brief orthographic key. The link is to chapter 1 of the Gospel According to Matthew. We have 7 chapters of the Gospel in the original orthography on line. We also have the complete translation, converted to BWAKA orthography, on the website. If your browser does not support frames, here are links to:
Lykins' original orthography
Chapter 1 of the Gospel According to Matthew in Lykins' orthography, with an English translation


Here's another example of written Potawatomi: Alanson Skinner, "The Mascoutens, Or Prairie Potawatomi," Bulletin of the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee, 1924. Skinner, an ethnologist, wrote for an academic and linguistic, rather than Potawatomi, audience.

Skinner orthography

arrow left Return to Potawatomi Orthography Rationale.

2. Learners: First speakers of English

Of the 4000 enrolled Prairie Band Potawatomi members, about 500 live on the reservation near Mayetta, Kansas. Many are spread throughout the nation, often in urban centers.

Only a few of the People (on and off the rez) speak the language. We are assuming that those young and old folks that will want to learn the language, are first speakers of the English language, so a familiar Roman alphabet will be already known or at least intuitive when it wanders from the norm. We hope.

arrow left Return to Potawatomi Orthography Rationale.

3. Marked symbols

Some of our symbols are different from English, since there are some Potawatomi sounds not often used in English and because we have chosen to make our vowels somewhat less ambiguous and interpretative.

We use symbols that are available or left-over from the English set to stand for unusual sounds. These are really the only new symbols a student of Potawatomi will need to learn. They include:

	e'	pat		jIshe' (uncle)
	I	fit		nijItso (how much?)
	v	buck		mvkcako (frog)
	c	chair		cmokman (non-Indian)
It's worth mentioning again that our other vowels (a, e, i, etc.) signify only one sound each.

We do not think it is that important how the symbols are marked (this has been a matter of great debate, but we are tired of that). The important thing is that any marked e (e'), i (i' OR I), or u (u' OR v) signifies a different sound. When writing by hand, I use a dot or dash over these vowels; same with s (s' = sh) and z. You might say that our c (ch sound) is marked.

Bottom line: the symbols above are what we came up with, mainly to keep things as simple and intuitive (consider our English speaking learners) as possible AND to make writing on line as easy as possible (that's why we gave up on dotting the s and z...).

Like dad says, now is that thick as mud?

One last thing: A main reason for going to all this trouble is to distinguish between vowels. In particular, there is a sound never used in English, except for imitative words like ga-ga (baby talk) and ba-a-a-a (sheep talk). That's our marked e', which comes often at the end of Potawatomi words (example: kwe' [woman]). Because it goes against English nature, new speakers invariably attempt to prounounce e' as e or a, or even ey.

arrow left Return to Potawatomi Orthography Rationale.


Potawatomi dictionary
bode'wadmimo speak Potawatomi
nIshnabe'k The People
mzenegenek books
eagle aloft Orthography - rationale
Home page: news & updates
nizhokmake'wen resources/help
BWAKA - about us

We welcome your questions and comments.

Text and graphics copyright © Smokey McKinney 1997


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