moving to a Latin alphabet was better, both for linguistic reasons and to reduce the cost of supporting multiple scripts. At present, at least for Inuktitut and Algonquian languages, Canadian government tolerates, and in some cases encourages, the use of syllabics. The growth of Aboriginal nationalism in Canada and the devolution of many government activities to native communities has changed attitudes towards syllabics. In many places there are now standardisation bodies for syllabic spelling, and the Unicode standard supports a fairly complete set of Canadian syllabic characters for digital exchange. Syllabics are now taught in schools in Inuktitut-speaking areas, and are often taught in traditionally syllabics-using Cree and Ojibwe communities as well. Although syllabic writing is not always practical (on the Internet, for example), and in many cases a Latin alphabet would be less costly to use, many native communities are strongly attached to syllabics. Even though it was originally the invention of European missionaries, many people consider syllabics a writing system that belongs to them, and associate Latin letters to linguistic assimilation. Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics in Unicode The bulk of the characters, including all that are found in official documents, are encoded into three blocks in the Unicode standard: Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics (U+1400–U+167F) Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics Extended (U+18B0–U+18FF) Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics Extended-A (U+11AB0–U+11ABF) These characters can be rendered with any appropriate font, including the freely available fonts listed below. In Microsoft Windows, built-in support was added through the Euphemia font introduced in Windows Vista, though this has incorrect forms for sha and shu. See also Inuktitut syllabics Inuktitut writing Kaktovik numerals Cree syllabics Ojibwe syllabics Carrier syllabics Kamloops Wawa Mi'kmaq hieroglyphic writing Cherokee syllabary Notes References Comrie, Bernard. 2005. "Writing systems." Martin Haspelmath, Matthew Dryer, David Gile, Bernard Comrie, eds. The world atlas of language structures, 568–570. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Murdoch, John. 1981. Syllabics: A successful educational innovation. MEd thesis, University of Manitoba Nichols, John. 1996. "The Cree syllabary." Peter Daniels and William Bright, eds. The world's writing systems, 599–611. New York: Oxford University Press. External links Language Geek: All About Syllabics Carrier Writing Systems Paper on Carrier Syllabics Inuktitut syllabary Braille code Description of Evans' manner of casting type at the Rossville mission Methodist Bible in Cree syllabics Dene syllabic prayer book Cree Origin of Syllabics Cree Standard Roman Orthography to syllabics converter Free font downloads ScriptSource entry for Cans script. Lists a