Spelling East Cree (Northern) – Double Consonants

Where to write a syllabic character twice

In some words we hear double consonants. These are now written with as two syllabics. For instance, the word now written as ᐱᔑᔑᒄ used to be written as ᐱᔑᒄ even though we can clearly hear the ᔑᔑ. Another example is ᐲᐦᒋᒑᐤ, which used to be written as ᐲᐦᒑᐤ. Sometimes, a word can be put in the diminutive twice, like the words below:

Other examples of words where you hear double consonants are:

Note that the first syllabic of the pair is always short.

Endings for verb conjugation (#09)

The endings for the verb conjugation #09 (called the Dubitative Neutral), which can be translated as ‘maybe s/he does something’, are written with a double syllabic symbol ᒋᒑ.