Muscogee orthography

Bilingual stop sign in English and Creek, in Okmulgee, Oklahoma.

The traditional Muscogee alphabet was adopted by the tribe in the late 1800s and has 20 letters.

Although it is based on the Latin alphabet, some sounds are vastly different from those in English like those represented by c, e, i, r, and v. Here are the (approximately) equivalent sounds using familiar English words and the IPA:

Spelling	Sound (IPA)	English equivalent
a	aː ~ a	like the "a" in father
ā	ɑː ~ ɑ	like the "a" in palm
æ	æ	like the "a" in trap
ʌ	ʌ	like the "u" in bud
b	v	like the "v" in vie
c	tʃ ~ ts	like the "ch" in such or the "ts" in cats
d	ɹ	like the "r" in rye
ð	ð	like the "th" in thy
e	ɪ	like the "i" in hit
ē	iː	like the "ee" in seed
ɛ	ɛː ~ ɛ	like the "e" in dress
f	f	like the "f" in father
g	ɰ
ɣ	ɣ
h	h	like the "h" in hatch
i	ɛ ~ ɛj	like the "ay" in day
ī	eː ~ e
j	ʃ	like the "sh" in shy
k	k	like the "k" in skim
l	l	like the "l" in look
m	m	like the "m" in moon
n	n	like the "n" in moon
ŋ	ŋ	like the "ng" in sang
o	oː ~ ʊ ~ o	like the "o" in bone or the "oo" in book
ō	uː	like the "oo" in goose
ɔ	ɔː ~ ɔ	like the "ough" in thought
p	p	like the "p" in spot
q	θ	like the "th" in thigh
r	ɬ	a sound that does not occur in English but is often represented as "hl" or "thl" in non-Creek texts. The sound is made by blowing air around the sides of the tongue while pronouncing English l and is identical to Welsh ll.
s	s	like the "s" in spot
t	t	like the "t" in stop
u	ʊ ~ o	like the "oo" in book or the "oa" in boat
ū	ɒː ~ ɒ	like the "o" in lot
v	ə ~ a	like the "a" in about
w	w	like the "w" in wet
x	x	like the "ch" in loch
y	j	like the "y" in yet
z	ɮ

There are also three vowel sequences whose spellings match their phonetic makeup:

Spelling	Sound (IPA)	English equivalent
eu	iʊ	similar to the exclamation "ew!". A combination of the sounds represented by e and u
ue	oɪ	like the "oy" in boy
vo	aʊ ~ əʊ	like the "ow" in how

Consonants

As mentioned above, certain consonants in Muscogee, when they appear between two sonorants (a vowel or m, n, l, w, or y), become voiced. They are the consonants represented by p, t, k, c, and s:

• c can sound like [dʒ], the "j" in just
• j can sound like [ʒ], the "s" in pleasure
• k can sound like [ɡ], the "g" in goat
• p can sound like [b], the "b" in boat
• s can sound like [z], the "z" in zoo
• t can sound like [d], the "d" in dust

In addition, certain combinations of consonants sound differently from English, giving multiple possible transcriptions. The most prominent case is the second person singular ending for verbs. Wiketv means "to stop:" the verb for "you are stopping" may be written in Creek as wikeckes or wiketskes. Both are pronounced the same. The -eck- transliteration is preferred by Innes (2004), and the -etsk- transliteration has been used by Martin (2000) and Loughridge (1964).

Vowel length

While vowel length in Muscogee is distinctive, it is somewhat inconsistently indicated in the traditional orthography. The following basic correspondences can be noted:

• The short vowel v with the long vowel a (/a/ vs. /aː/)
• The short vowel e with the long vowel ē (/i/ vs. /iː/)
• The short vowel u with the long vowel o (/o/ vs. /oː/)
• The short vowel o with the long vowel ō (/u/ vs. /uː/)

However, the correspondences do not always apply, and in some words, short /a/ is spelled a, long /iː/ is spelled e, and short /o/ is spelled o.

Nonstandard orthography

Muscogee Creek words carry distinctive tones and nasalization of their vowels. These features are not marked in the traditional orthography, only in dictionaries and linguistic publications. The following additional markers have been used by Martin (2000) and Innes (2004):

• Falling tone in a syllable is shown using a circumflex. In English, falling tone is found in phrases such as "uh-oh" or commands such as "stop!" In Muscogee, however, changing a verb such as acces ("she is putting on (a dress)") to âcces alters the meaning from one of process to one of state ("she is wearing (a dress)").
• Nasalization of a vowel is shown with an ogonek under the vowel. Changing the verb acces to ącces adds the imperfective aspect, a sense of repeated or habitual action ("she kept putting on (that same dress)").
• The key syllable of a word is often shown with an accent and is the last syllable that has normal (high) tone within a word; the following syllables are all lower in pitch.

External links

• Muscogee language