necessary to disambiguate the word. Long and short vowels may be written identically and require context to disambiguate. Also, western Cree writers may use the character ᙮ to indicate the end of sentence, instead of the Roman alphabet period so that it is not confused with the diacritic indicating the w sound. An example of Plains Cree written in western syllabics: English translation: The young people then began to speak in the language of his ancestry – Nêhiyawêwin (Plains Cree language). Unfortunately the young man could not make out what they were saying even though he was of the same nation; Nêhiyaw (Plains Cree people). External links Cree syllabics at languagegeek.com (Website has downloadable Unicode syllabics fonts) References ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐍᐏᐣ: ᐃᑘᐏᓇ / nēhiýawēwin: itwēwina / Cree: Words Compiled by Arok Wolvengrey. Canadian Plains Research Center, University of Regina, Saskatchewan. 2001. Cree language Canadian Aboriginal syllabics