ᙤᗾᑋᘅ Tsek’ehne–Sekani Experimental Syllabarium

It has been reported by Poser (2000:1) that the Tsek’ehne people used syllabics in the past, although they wrote in Dene (Carrier) instead of their own language. There are examples of syllabics used by Tsek’ehne people, such as on tombstones.

I have included a practical syllabics orthography for Tsek’ehne, which is essentially the same as Dakelh, except that it includes several series of syllabics required for writing Tsek’ehne. Language information comes from Guzāgi K’gé’. This experimental version is not today’s standard, nor has it been (to my knowledge) adopted by any speakers. It is a demonstration on how a syllabics system can accurately reflect the modern language.

On the website http://www.mcleodlake.com, Sekani in the native language is spelled 3 different ways, Tse’Khene, TseK’ehne, and TseK’hene. Tsek’ehne most closely matches the Handbook of North American Indians transliteration “Tthᐧhéek’ehneh”, so I have used that version here.

In this practical orthography, there may be no need to write Low tone diacritics (accents) except for learning purposes and to clear cases of ambiguity.