Editing Samogitian language (section)

== Writing system ==
The first use of a unique writing system for Samogitian was in the [[interwar period]], however it was neglected during the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] period, so only elderly people knew how to write in Samogitian at the time Lithuania regained independence. The Samogitian Cultural Society renewed the system to make it more usable.

The writing system uses similar letters to standard Lithuanian, but with the following differences:

*There are no [[nasal vowel]]s (letters with [[ogonek]]s: ą, ę, į, ų).
*There are five additional [[vowel length|long vowels]], written with [[Macron (diacritic)|macron]]s above (as in [[Latvian language|Latvian]]): ā, ē, ė̄, ī, and ō. Lithuanian only has one letter with a macron: ū.
*Long i in Samogitian is written with a macron above: ī (unlike standard Lithuanian where it is y).
*The long vowel ė is written like ė with macron: Ė̄  and ė̄. [[:sgs:Image:E smg.jpg|Image:E smg.jpg]] In the pre-Unicode 8-bit computer fonts for Samogitian, the letter 'ė with macron' was mapped on the code of the letter õ. From this circumstance a belief sprang that 'ė with macron' could be substituted with the character õ. It is not so, however. In fact, if the letter 'ė with macron' is for some reason not available, it can be substituted with the doubling of the macron-less letter, that is, 'ėė'.
*There are two additional [[diphthongs]] in Samogitian that are written as [[digraph (orthography)|digraph]]s: ou and ėi. (The component letters are part of the standard Lithuanian alphabet.)

As previously it was difficult to add these new characters to typesets, some older Samogitian texts use double letters instead of macrons to indicate long vowels, for example aa for ā and ee for ē; now the Samogitian Cultural Society discourages these conventions and recommends using the letters with macrons above instead. The use of double letters is accepted in cases where computer [[font]]s do not have Samogitian letters; in such cases y is used instead of Samogitian ī, the same as in standard Lithuanian, while other long letters are written as double letters. The [[apostrophe]] might be used to denote [[Palatalization (phonetics)|palatalization]] in some cases; in others i is used for this, as in standard Lithuanian.

A Samogitian computer keyboard layout has been created.{{citation needed|date=September 2017}}

Samogitian alphabet:

{| align=center cellpadding=10 style="text-align:center;"
|-
|align="left"|''Letter''<br />''Name''||'''A a''' <br/> [ā]
|'''Ā ā''' <br/> [ėlguojė ā]
|'''B b''' <br/> [bė]
|'''C c''' <br/> [cė]
|'''Č č''' <br/> [čė]
|'''D d''' <br/> [dė]
|'''E e''' <br/> [ē]
|'''Ē ē''' <br/> [ėlguojė ē]
|-
|align="left"|''Letter''<br />''Name''||'''Ė ė''' <br/>[ė̄]
|'''Ė̄ ė̄''' <br/>[ėlguojė ė̄]
|'''F f''' <br/>[ėf]
|'''G g''' <br/>[gė, gie]
|'''H h''' <br/>[hā]
|'''I i''' <br/>[ī]
|'''Ī ī''' <br/>[ėlguojė ī]
|'''J j''' <br/>[jot]
|-
|align="left"|''Letter''<br />''Name''||'''K k''' <br/>[kā]
|'''L l''' <br/>[ėl]
|'''M m''' <br/>[ėm]
|'''N n''' <br/>[ėn]
|'''O o''' <br/>[ō]
|'''Ō ō''' <br/>[ėlguojė ō]
|'''P p''' <br/>[pė]
|'''R r''' <br/>[ėr]
|-
|align="left"|''Letter''<br />''Name''||'''S s''' <br/>[ės]
|'''Š š''' <br/>[ėš]
|'''T t''' <br/>[tė]
|'''U u''' <br/>[ū]
|'''Ū ū''' <br/>[ėlguojė ū]
|'''V v''' <br/>[vė]
|'''Z z''' <br/>[zė, zet]
|'''Ž ž''' <br/>[žė, žet].
|}