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| Native
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Type of Engineering involved:
Computer
Historically, Aboriginal peoples come from an oral tradition, in which
there were no written documents. The libraries of the people resided in the heads
of community Elders. Elders still carry much wisdom and knowledge, but Aboriginal
peoples these days also use written language. Certain nations, such as the Mohawk,
base their written language on the Roman alphabet used in English, French and
most European languages. The Cree and Inuit however, use two different systems
of Syllabics.
With Syllabics, one-syllable sounds such as ee, oo, a,
and see, soo, sa, are represented by symbols. This reduces word length, and better
represents sounds like the Inuktitut "qi," as in "qimmik"
which means dog. Developed in the late 1800s for translation of the Bible, Syllabics
have been adopted for everyday use in Cree and Inuit communities in the eastern
Arctic. (In the western Arctic, speakers of the same language groups use the Roman
alphabet.) As you may have guessed, computers are now able to represent Syllabics
in word processors and other applications. If you speak Cree or Inuktitut, or
even if you do not, it is possible to download the fonts through the Internet
and start writing in Syllabics!
To download Syllabics for Cree or Inuktitut
go to ftp://ylcftp.uoregon.edu/fonts/ |
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