Plains Cree Orthography

Function documentation

crk_orthography.sro2syllabics(sro: str, sandhi: bool = True) → str

Convert Cree words written in SRO text to syllabics.

Finds instances of SRO words in strings, and converts them all to syllabics.

>>> sro2syllabics('Eddie nitisiyikason')
'Eddie ᓂᑎᓯᔨᑲᓱᐣ'

Any word that does not have the “structure” of a Plains Cree word is not converted:

>>> sro2syllabics('Maskêkosihk trail')
'ᒪᐢᑫᑯᓯᕽ trail'
>>> sro2syllabics('Maskêkosihk tireyl')
'ᒪᐢᑫᑯᓯᕽ ᑎᕒᐁᕀᓬ'

sro2syllabics() can handle variations in orthography. For example, it can convert circumflexes (âêîô):

>>> sro2syllabics('êwêpâpîhkêwêpinamahk')
'ᐁᐍᐹᐲᐦᑫᐍᐱᓇᒪᕽ'

It can convert macrons (āēīō):

>>> sro2syllabics('ēwēpâpīhkēwēpinamahk')
'ᐁᐍᐹᐲᐦᑫᐍᐱᓇᒪᕽ'

And it can convert an unaccented “e” just as if it had the appropriate accent:

>>> sro2syllabics('ewepapihkewepinamahk')
'ᐁᐍᐸᐱᐦᑫᐍᐱᓇᒪᕽ'

Additionally, apostrophes are interpreted as short-i’s. For example, converting “tânsi” will not work as expected:

>>> sro2syllabics("tânsi")
'ᑖᐣᓯ'

However, add an apostrophe after the ‘n’ and it will work correctly:

>>> sro2syllabics("tân'si")
'ᑖᓂᓯ'

In SRO, the most orthographically correct way to write certain compounds is to separate two morphemes with a hyphen. For example:

pîhc-âyihk — inside
nîhc-âyihk — outside

However, both words are pronounced as if discarding the hyphen:

pîhcâyihk — inside
nîhcâyihk — outside

This is called sandhi. When transliterated into syllabics, the transcription should follow the latter, blended interpretation, rather than the former, separated interpretation. By default, sro2syllabics() applies the sandhi rule and joins the syllable as if there were no hyphen:

>>> sro2syllabics('pîhc-âyihk')
'ᐲᐦᒑᔨᕽ'

However, if this is not desired, you can set sandhi=False as a keyword argument:

>>> sro2syllabics('pîhc-âyihk', sandhi=False)
'ᐲᐦᐨᐋᔨᕽ'
Parameters:
  • sro (str) – the text with Cree words written in SRO.
  • sandhi (bool) – whether to apply sandhi orthography rule (default: True).
Returns:

the text with Cree words written in syllabics.

Return type:

str

crk_orthography.syllabics2sro(syllabics: str, produce_macrons=False) → str

Convert Cree words written in syllabics to SRO.

Finds all instances of syllabics in the given string, and converts it to SRO. Anything that is not written in syllabics is simply ignored:

>>> syllabics2sro('Eddie ᓂᑎᓯᔨᑲᓱᐣ')
'Eddie nitisiyikason'

By default, the SRO will be produced with circumflexes (âêîô):

>>> syllabics2sro('ᐁᐍᐹᐲᐦᑫᐍᐱᓇᒪᕽ')
'êwêpâpîhkêwêpinamahk'

This can be changed to macrons (āēīō) by setting produce_macrons to True:

>>> syllabics2sro('ᐁᐍᐹᐲᐦᑫᐍᐱᓇᒪᕽ', produce_macrons=True)
'ēwēpāpīhkēwēpinamahk'

In both cases, the character produced will be a pre-composed character, rather than an ASCII character followed by a combining diacritical mark.

Parameters:
  • syllabics (str) – the text with Cree words written in syllabics.
  • produce_macrons – if True, produces macrons (āēīō) instead of circumflexes (âêîô).
Returns:

the text with Cree words written in SRO.

Return type:

str