Sioux language font (fwd)

[Koontz John E]

On Sat, 28 Sep 2002, Tim Dunnigan wrote:
> Dr. Matonunpa and his daughter Dr. Angela Wilson (Professor of History
> at Arizona State University) decided to mark unaspirated p, t, c, k
> with a dot positioned below the letter, while leaving their aspirated
> counterparts unmarked.

This tradition is employed in Buechel (with over dots).  It's essentially
the practice of Dorsey (under x's) and subsequently of LaFlesche (under
dots), though the (voiceless) unaspirated series they apply it to is also
tense/long and corresponds largely with Dakotan aspirates.

Interestingly, I have the impression that, with the possible exception
that LaFlesche may have been following Dorsey, these are all more or less
independent innovations.

Dotting unaspirated stops is a fairly economical approach in Dakotan,
where aspirates are common.  In Dakotan you could also use bdjg for
unaspirated stops, though that would interfere with using g as gh (voiced
velar fricative) and I suspect it would present practical problems due to
the clash with English usage, which is probably why ph/th/ch/kh bother
people, too.  In Omaha-Ponca it's easier to leave the tense stops unmarked
and mark the rare true aspirates specially, and this is the approach
adopted in the Macy Schools Omaha Orthography and the new Ponca
orthography, too.

JEK