Key sequences for typing Plains Cree Syllabics on a North American keyboard

Introduction

This document describes the mapping of key sequences on an English keyboard to the Plains Cree (ISO 639-3: crk) syllabics writing system (ISO 15924: Cans). A syllabic writing system is one in which each grapheme represents a syllable rather than a single sound or an entire word. For example, the Cree syllabics character ⟨ᑮ⟩ represents the syllable pronounced as /kiː/.

The key sequences listed here are for a “build-a-syllable” or “phonetic” keyboard layout. A phonetic keyboard layout is one in which the typist composes characters by typing the sounds that the character represents, using the equivalent English keys for those sounds. These English key sequences are converted into one or more syllabic characters. The key sequences are intended to emulate the spoken language as much as possible. For example, if the typist wants to type the character ⟨ᑮ⟩, they would press the sequence k, i, i.

These key sequences assume a physical keyboard, such as an ANSI QWERTY keyboard. For on-screen layouts (such as for smartphones), it is better to provide a keyboard layout that lists syllabics directly, rather than mapping through the Latin alphabet. See [1] and [2] for examples of on-screen layouts.

The recommendations in this document represent the consensus that has emerged among Cree-speaking communities over many years of typing Cree syllabics on keyboards with various platforms. They are the result of a long-term collaboration between Cree-speaking communities and the Alberta Language Technology Lab, which focuses on research and development of language technology for Indigenous languages.

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.

Specification

The following tables contain key sequences that can be typed on an ANSI QWERTY keyboard layout.

A conforming keyboard layout MUST match a row in the following tables by using the longest matching input key sequence.

While a typist is in the process of typing a sequence, the implementation SHOULD display intermediate forms. For example, if the typist desires to obtain the ⟨ᑹ⟩ syllabic, they must type kwii according to the following table. However, because the key sequence kwi maps to ⟨ᑷ⟩, the character ⟨ᑷ⟩ should be presented to the typist after the third keystroke. When the typist inputs the final i, they complete the longer key sequence kwii, and the ⟨ᑷ⟩ should become ⟨ᑹ⟩, the final desired output.

Required mappings

A conforming layout MUST include the following mappings:

Morpheme separator

The morpheme separator is a character used to indicate boundaries between meaningful pieces of words (“morphemes”), such as prefixes and suffixes. The morpheme separator should be a space with half the width of a normal word-separating space. Although the morpheme separator appears as a small gap inside words, it is not permissible to break lines at the morpheme separator.

A conforming layout MUST map the key combination of Shift+Space to insert a U+202F NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE character.

Optional mappings

The following tables may be appended to the table of required mappings. Implementers choose whether the additional mappings are appropriate to include in their implementation.

Quotation marks

The ASCII quotation mark character U+0022 QUOTATION MARK is too similar in appearance to the ⟨ᐦ⟩ syllabic. Indeed, any punctuation that is rendered as straight lines and dots is confusable with syllabics such as ⟨ᑊ⟩, ⟨ᐨ⟩ and the dots to the right of syllabics with the /w/ sound.

The French guillemet quotation marks are borrowed for this purpose, and as such they should be present on a keyboard layout.

A conforming keyboard SHOULD include the following mappings:

nw- syllabics

The characters ⟨ᣇ⟩, ⟨ᣉ⟩, ⟨ᣋ⟩, and ⟨ᣍ⟩ are marginal in Plains Cree syllabics. They were not part of the original repertoire included in the Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics (UCAS) Unicode block, and hence are in a different Unicode block, namely Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics Extended.

Fonts that support the UCAS block may not have glyphs for these additional, rarely used characters. As such, implementers may wish to omit the mappings from their layouts.

A conforming keyboard SHOULD include the following mappings:

Word-final “hk”

The ⟨ᕽ⟩ character represents a word-final /hk/ sequence of sounds. Although the /hk/ sounds can appear word-medially, ⟨ᕽ⟩ never appears in the middle of words; only at the ends of words. Word-final /hk/ occurs in the locative suffix (/‑ɪhk/ or /‑ohk/) and in certain third-person conjunct mode verb conjugations (/‑ʌhk/ or /‑ɑːhk/). Therefore hk is not mapped to ⟨ᕽ⟩ in this specification. Typists can produce the ⟨ᕽ⟩ character by typing x, as specified in the required mappings.

Note that not all Cree communities use the ⟨ᕽ⟩ syllabic final. Notably, Maskwacîs uses the ⟨ᐦᐠ⟩ cluster to write the /hk/ word-finally instead [3]. As such, including this mapping by default is inappropriate if one wishes to make a keyboard layout satisfying all communities.

In order to avoid the appearance of ⟨ᕽ⟩ word-medially, and not to impose the ⟨ᕽ⟩ on communities which do not use it, a conforming keyboard layout SHOULD NOT include the following mapping:

Prior art

Chris Harvey provides a “build-a-syllable” layout for the Western Cree languages (Plains Cree, Woods Cree, and Western Swampy Cree) at languagegeek.com. However, its key sequences are capped at a maximum of two keys, thus requiring additional keys for syllabic finals and w-dotted syllabics, which provide for a steeper learning curve.

References

1. ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐍᐏᐣ Keyboard
2. ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐍᐏᐣ (Cree Syllabics) Phonetic Keyboard
3. Maskwacis [sic] Plains Cree Syllabics Table with SRO Equivalents