Cree

Where it’s spoken

Cree is the largest Indigenous language family in Canada, with about 96,000 speakers spread across a vast territory from Alberta to Labrador. Major dialect groups include Plains Cree, Woods Cree, Swampy Cree, Moose Cree, East Cree, Atikamekw, and Innu (Montagnais). Cree communities also exist in Montana (Rocky Boy’s Reservation, USA).

What it sounds like

Cree dialects have ten or eleven consonants and four or seven vowels (depending on the dialect). They distinguish short and long vowels. Most dialects lack labial/labio-velar contrasts — for example, no “f” or “v” sounds. The language is polysynthetic, with verbal complexes encoding multiple grammatical relationships.

How it’s written

Cree uses Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics, an abugida invented by Methodist missionary James Evans in 1840 specifically for Cree. The script’s geometric letterforms rotate to indicate the following vowel. Some Cree dialects are also written in Latin orthographies, especially in Quebec.

History

Evans’s syllabics spread rapidly and were soon adapted for many other Indigenous languages of Canada. Cree has flourished in print, with Bible translations dating to the 1850s and current government services using both syllabic and Roman scripts.