Editing Cree syllabics (section)

==History==
{{Main|Canadian Aboriginal syllabics#History}}
Cree syllabics were developed for Ojibwe by [[James Evans (linguist)|James Evans]], a missionary in what is now [[Manitoba]] in the 1830s. Evans had originally adapted the [[Latin script]] to Ojibwe (see [[Ojibwe writing systems#Evans system|Evans system]]), but after learning of the success of the [[Cherokee syllabary]],{{Additional citation needed|date=November 2024|reason=This claim is not found in the citation provided}} he experimented with invented scripts based on his familiarity with [[shorthand]] and [[Devanagari]].<ref>[{{Cite web|title = Plains Cree History|url = http://www.sicc.sk.ca/plains-cree_overview_history.html|access-date = 2016-01-17|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180817211036/http://www.sicc.sk.ca/plains-cree_overview_history.html|archive-date = 2018-08-17|url-status = dead}}</ref>

When Evans later worked with the closely related Cree and ran into trouble with the Latin alphabet, he turned to his Ojibwe project and in 1840 adapted it to Cree.<ref name="Campbell"/> The result contained just nine glyph shapes, each of which stood for a syllable with the [[vowels]] determined by the shapes' orientation. After the 1841 publication of a syllabics hymn book, the new script spread quickly. The Cree valued it because it could be learned in just a few hours and because it was visually distinctive from the Latin script of the colonial languages.<ref name="Daniels"/> Virtually all Cree became literate in the new syllabary within a few years. Evans taught by writing on birchbark with soot, and he became known as "the man who made birchbark talk."<ref>Mona Baker, Kirsten Malmkjær (2001:364) ''Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies''</ref>