Innovation and Inspiration : The Development of Inuktitut Syllabic Orthography
In the 1850's John Harden and E.A. Watkins, missionaries of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) to James Bay, began the work of adapting James Evan's Cree syllabic orthography to Inuktitut. Watkins' introduced the syllabic writing system to Inuit at Fort George and Little Whale River...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal
1993
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| Online Access: | http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/003027ar https://doi.org/10.7202/003027ar |
| Summary: | In the 1850's John Harden and E.A. Watkins, missionaries of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) to James Bay, began the work of adapting James Evan's Cree syllabic orthography to Inuktitut. Watkins' introduced the syllabic writing system to Inuit at Fort George and Little Whale River in 1855, and that same year Harden printed a small book of scripture verses in syllables on his press at Moose Factory. In 1865, at the request of CMS Secretary Henry Venn, Harden and Watkins met in conference in England and modified the syllabic system to allow a more precise rendering of both Inuktitut and Moose Cree. It remained for Edmund James Peck, who arrived in the diocese in 1876, to devote his attention to the translation of scripture into Inuktitut in Harden and Watkins' orthography. Only minor changes were made in the Inuktitut orthography until the major revision under the direction of the Inuit Cultural Institute in the 1970's. Vers 1850, deux missionnaires en poste à la Baie de James, J. Harden et E A. Watkins, entreprirent d'adapter à l'inuktitut l'orthographe syllabique cri de James Evans. En 1855, le système d'écriture syllabique fut présenté aux ¡nuit de Fort George et de Petite Rivière à la Baleine. Cette même année, un petit manuel des Saintes Écritures fut imprimé en syllabique à Moose Factory. En 1865, Harden et Watkins se rencontrèrent et modifièrent ce système d'écriture afin de pouvoir rendre plus fidèlement, à la fois, V inuktitut et le cri. L'orthographe inuktitut ne devait subir que des changements mineurs avant la révision en profondeur entreprise dans les années 1970 par la direction de l'Institut culturel inuit. |
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