The largest dialect of Cree — a Central Algonquian language spoken across the Canadian prairies from Alberta to Manitoba.
Where it’s spoken
Plains Cree (nēhiyawēwin) is spoken by perhaps 40,000–60,000 people across the western Canadian provinces, especially Saskatchewan and Alberta. It is the western dialect of the Cree continuum that stretches eastward to Quebec and Labrador.
What it sounds like
Like all Algonquian languages, Plains Cree is polysynthetic — entire English sentences can be expressed as a single verb word marked for person, animacy, evidentiality, and direction. Vowel length is phonemic and pitch accent plays a grammatical role.
How it’s written
Cree syllabics — invented by James Evans in the 1840s — encode consonant-vowel combinations as a rotating set of geometric shapes. The system is widely used by Plains, Woods, and Swampy Cree communities; the Latin alphabet is also standard, especially in academic and government contexts.
Find more languages by letter
Plains Cree starts with P and ends with E. Browse other languages along the same letter.
Languages that contain a letter from "Plains Cree":