Osage

orthography notes

Updated 2 April, 2024

This page brings together basic information about the Osage script and its use for the Osage language. It aims to provide a brief, descriptive summary of the modern, printed orthography and typographic features, and to advise how to write Osage using Unicode.

Referencing this document

Richard Ishida, Osage Orthography Notes, 02-Apr-2024, https://r12a.github.io/scripts/osge/osa

Sample

Select part of this sample text to show a list of characters, with links to more details. Source
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๐’ป๐“ฒ๐“ฃ๐“ค๐“ช ๐“ฐ๐“˜อ˜๐“ค๐“˜ ๐“ท๐“ฃอ˜ ๐“˜๐“ต๐“Ÿ ๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“˜โ€”๐“ค๐“˜๐“ธ๐“˜ ๐“ค๐“ฏ๐“ฃ ๐“˜๐“ต๐“Ÿ ๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“˜, ๐“ช๐“ฌ๐“ธ๐“˜. ๐“๐“Ÿ๐“ฒโ€™๐“˜ ๐“ท๐“ฃอ˜ ๐“ฃ๐“ต๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“Ÿ. ๐“๐“˜๐“ฒโ€™๐“˜ ๐“˜๐“ค๐“ธ๐“˜ โ€œ๐’ผ๐“ช๐“ฐ๐“˜๐“ก๐“˜ ๐“จ๐“˜๐“ต๐“ฃอ˜,โ€ ๐“˜๐“ค๐“ธ๐“˜. ๐’ป๐“ฒ๐“ฃ๐“ค๐“ช ๐“ฐ๐“˜อ˜๐“ค๐“˜ ๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“˜, โ€œ๐“๐“ฃ๐“Ÿ ๐“ต๐“ฃ๐“Ÿ ๐“ค๐“ช๐“ฐ๐“˜๐“ก๐“˜ ๐“จ๐“˜๐“ต๐“ฃอ˜ ๐“ท๐“ฃ๐“ฉ๐“˜อ˜๐“ฎ๐“ฐ๐“˜ ๐“ฐ๐“›อ˜ ๐“จ๐“ฃอ˜๐“ค๐“ฏ๐“Ÿ,โ€ ๐’ป๐“ฒ๐“ฃ๐“ค๐“ช ๐“ฐ๐“˜อ˜๐“ค๐“˜ ๐“˜๐“ช๐“˜ ๐“Ÿ๐“ค๐“ฃ๐“Ÿ ๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“˜.

๐“๐“Ÿ๐“ฒโ€™๐“˜ ๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“˜, โ€œ๐’ฐอ˜๐“ต๐“˜๐“ฉ๐“˜อ˜๐“ฎ๐“ฐ๐“˜ ๐“˜๐“ก๐“˜ ๐“ท๐“ฃ๐“œ๐“˜๐“น๐“ฐ๐“˜๐“ค๐“Ÿ ๐“ฐ๐“›อ˜ ๐“จ๐“ฃ๐“ค๐“ฏ๐“Ÿ.โ€

๐’ป๐“ฒ๐“ฃ๐“ค๐“ช ๐“ฐ๐“˜อ˜๐“ค๐“˜ ๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“˜, โ€œ๐’ฐอ˜๐“ต๐“˜๐“น๐“ฐ๐“˜๐“ค๐“Ÿ ๐“Ÿ๐“ฐ๐“˜อ˜ ๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“˜ ๐“ฐ๐“˜อ˜ ๐“ฉ๐“˜อ˜๐“ฎ๐“ฐ๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“Ÿ.โ€ ๐“๐“˜๐“ฉ๐“˜อ˜๐“ฎ๐“ฐ๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“Ÿ ๐“˜๐“ก๐“˜ ๐“ต๐“Ÿ, ๐“๐“Ÿ๐“ฒโ€™๐“˜ ๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“˜ ๐“ต๐“˜๐“น๐“ฐ๐“˜๐“ค๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“Ÿ ๐“ฎ๐“ฃ๐“ต๐“Ÿ๐“ฒ๐“Ÿ. ๐“๐“˜๐“น๐“ฐ๐“˜๐“ค๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“Ÿ ๐“˜๐“ก๐“˜, ๐’ป๐“ฒ๐“ฃ๐“ค๐“ช ๐“ฐ๐“˜อ˜๐“ค๐“˜ ๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“˜ ๐“˜๐“ต๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“Ÿ ๐“ฐ๐“˜อ˜, ๐“ป๐“˜อ˜ ๐“ฃอ˜ ๐“Ÿ๐“ฒ๐“ฃ ๐“ฒ๐“Ÿ ๐“Ÿ๐“ฒ๐“ฃ ๐“ฎ๐“ฃ๐“ต๐“ฃอ˜๐“ค๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“Ÿ. ๐’ฟ๐“ฃอ˜ ๐“˜๐“ค๐“น๐“˜ ๐“ฐ๐“˜อ˜, ๐“ฎ๐“ฃ ๐“ฒ๐“Ÿ ๐“œ๐“ช๐“ค๐“˜ ๐“ฃ๐“ฌ๐“˜ ๐“˜๐“ค๐“น๐“˜.

๐’ป๐“ฒ๐“ฃ๐“ค๐“ช ๐“ฐ๐“˜อ˜๐“ค๐“˜ ๐“˜๐“ค๐“น๐“˜, โ€œ๐“‚๐“ช ๐“˜อ˜๐“ฏ๐“ฃอ˜ ๐“ท๐“˜๐“ง๐“ฃ ๐“จ๐“ฃอ˜๐“ค๐“ฏ๐“Ÿ!โ€ ๐“˜๐“ค๐“น๐“˜. ๐’ฟ๐“ฃอ˜ ๐“ฏ๐“ชอ˜ ๐“˜๐“ค๐“น๐“˜ ๐“ฒโ€™๐“Ÿ ๐“ก๐“ฃอ˜๐“ค๐“ฏ๐“Ÿ ๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“˜ ๐“ฐ๐“˜อ˜ ๐“ฒโ€™๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“Ÿ ๐“ฃ๐“ฒ๐“ฃ๐“ค๐“ช ๐“ฐ๐“˜อ˜๐“ค๐“˜ ๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“˜. ๐’ด๐“ช๐“ค๐“˜๐“ป๐“ถ๐“ฃ๐“ค๐“˜ ๐“œ๐“ช๐“ค๐“˜ ๐“ฃ๐“ฌ๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“Ÿ ๐“ฐ๐“˜อ˜ ๐“ฒโ€™๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“Ÿ.

Usage & history

Historically Osage was spoken in parts of Missouri, Arkansas and Kansas. The Osage tribe was moved to Oklahoma in 1872. Ethnologue reports no first language speakers since the last died in 2005, but second language speakers are emerging due to a concerted effort to re-introduce the language to an Osage community of around 11,000.

๐“๐“˜๐“ป๐“˜๐“ป๐“Ÿ ๐“ฃ๐“Ÿ wษ‘ส’ษ‘ส’ษ› iษ› Osage

The Osage language has been written using Latin characters since the mid-1800s, but there was no standardised spelling. Writers simply used the Latin letters to represent the sounds as they felt fit.

Around 2006, a new orthography was developed, building on the Latin letters but creating a new set of glyphs for many sounds. This was enthusiastically received by students and teachers.

In 2014 further rationalisation of the script took place, partly driven by the aim of standardising a permanent form for encoding in the Unicode Standard. For details, see variants.

Sources Everson

See also variants.

See the comparison table

Basic features

The Osage script is an alphabet. Both consonants and vowels are indicated by letters. See the table to the right for a brief overview of features for the Osage language.

Osage text runs left-to-right in horizontal lines. Words are separated by spaces. The script is bicameral. The shapes of the upper and lowercase forms are typically the same.

Osage pronunciation has a good deal of allophonic variation built into most sounds in its alphabet, influenced by surrounding sounds or by dialect.

โฏ consonantSummary

Osage has 21 basic consonant letters. It also has letters to represent 5 pre-aspirated sounds but the language-learning curriculum of the Osage Nation doesn't use them, with aim of simplifying the learning experience. Another 3 ejective sounds are written using ʼ [U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE].

โฏ basicV

This orthography is an alphabet where vowels are written using 10 vowel letters (20 in total), including some diphthongs. Nasalisation is very common and is marked using 0358.

Three other combining marks can be used to indicate vowel length or accent, although they are not commonly used. None of the marks combine with their base characters to form precomposed shapes.

Numbers use ASCII digits.

Character index

Letters

Show

Consonants

๐“ฌโฃ๐“œโฃ๐“ฐโฃ๐“คโฃ๐“ฆโฃ๐“ฒโฃ๐“ดโฃ๐“โฃ๐“ตโฃ๐“ฎโฃ๐“บโฃ๐“ฏโฃ๐“ปโฃ๐“ธโฃ๐“นโฃ๐“กโฃ๐“ขโฃ๐“จโฃ๐“ฉโฃ๐“ทโฃ๐“ง
๐“„โฃ๐’ดโฃ๐“ˆโฃ๐’ผโฃ๐’พโฃ๐“Šโฃ๐“Œโฃ๐’ตโฃ๐“โฃ๐“†โฃ๐“’โฃ๐“‡โฃ๐““โฃ๐“โฃ๐“‘โฃ๐’นโฃ๐’บโฃ๐“€โฃ๐“โฃ๐“โฃ๐’ฟ
๐“ญโฃ๐“ฑโฃ๐“ฅโฃ๐“ณโฃ๐“ž
๐“…โฃ๐“‰โฃ๐’ฝโฃ๐“‹โฃ๐’ถ

Vowels

๐“ฃโฃ๐“ถโฃ๐“Ÿโฃ๐“ชโฃ๐“›โฃ๐“˜โฃ๐“™โฃ๐“ โฃ๐“ซโฃ๐“š
๐’ปโฃ๐“Žโฃ๐’ทโฃ๐“‚โฃ๐’ณโฃ๐’ฐโฃ๐’ฑโฃ๐’ธโฃ๐“ƒโฃ๐’ฒ

Other

สผ

Combining marks

Show

Vowels

อ˜
ฬโฃฬ„โฃฬ‹

Punctuation

Show
โ€œโฃโ€โฃโ€˜โฃโ€™โฃโ€โฃโ€“โฃโ€”โฃโ€ฆ

ASCII

(โฃ)โฃ,โฃ.โฃ:โฃ;โฃ?โฃ!

Symbols

Show
^

Other

Show

To be investigated

%โฃ-โฃ[โฃ]โฃยงโฃโ€‘โฃโ€ โฃโ€กโฃโ€ฒโฃโ€ณ
Items to show in lists

Phonology

These are sounds for the Osage language.

Click on the sounds to reveal locations in this document where they are mentioned.

Phones in a lighter colour are non-native or allophones. Source Wikipedia.

Vowel sounds

Plain vowels

i ฤฉ u o รต ษ™ ษ™ฬƒ ษ™ ษ™ฬƒ ษ› a รฃ

u is variable, and may be realised as ส‰ or y following a velar plosive or near a front vowel with no intervening plosive. It may also conflate with i after รฐ or n.wl

ษ› can sometimes sound like e.

In fast speech, a is often pronounced ษ™ after a stressed syllable or at the end of a word.wl The orthography has a separate letter for the sound ษ™, although Qintero doesn't classify it as phonemic.wl An ษ™ sound may also be added to the end of English words, so that they don't end with a consonant. She gives the example of her own name, which may be pronounced carolinษ™.

รต and รฃ can often be interchangeable.q

For more details, see Wikipedia and Quintero.

Diphthongs

There are a number of permutations of adjacent vowels without intervening consonants. The items shown here are those for which there are separate letters in Osage.

eษชฬƒ oษชฬƒ aษช aษชฬƒ

For more details, see Wikipedia and Quintero.

Consonant sounds

labial dental alveolar post-
alveolar		 velar glottal
stop p
pห€ สฐp px pสƒ
br		 t
สฐt		     k
kห€ สฐk kx kสƒ kสฒ		 ส”
affricate   tอกs
tอกsห€ สฐtอกs tอกsสฐ tx		   tอกสƒ
สฐtอกสƒ		    
fricative   รฐ s z สƒ ส’ x ษฃ h hสฒ
nasal m   n    
approximant w   l    
trill/flap     r  

Many sounds are described in terms of voiced and unvoiced, however Quintero says "The feature distinguishing s and ลก from z and ลพ is probably tenseness vs. laxness more than voicelessness vs. voicing." The sounds represented here as p, t, and k, are realised as an unaspirated sound that is halfway between voiced and unvoiced. In some words the sound may be more like one than the other.

The br sequence contains the only clearly voiced plosive phone. It appears infrequently, except in verb forms.wl,#Stop_series

As well as ejectives, the table lists pre-aspirated stops and affricates, and the sound sequences that now represent historical post-aspiration, ie. consonants followed by x or สƒ. The pre-aspirated consonants are pronounced as geminates in some dialects.

For more details, see Wikipedia and Quintero.

Tone

tbd

Structure

Osage is based on syllables of the form:wl,#Consonant_clusters

(C)(C)V(V)

Consonant clusters never appear in word-final position; only word-initial or word-medial.wl,#Consonant_clusters

Vowels

Vowel summary table

The following table summarises the main vowel to character assigments.

Precise spelling may use additional combining marks to indicate vowel length and tone (not shown here). The left column shows lowercase, the right uppercase.

Simple:
๐“ฃโฃ๐“ฃอ˜โฃ โฃ๐“ถ
๐’ปโฃ๐’ปอ˜โฃ โฃ๐“Ž
๐“Ÿโฃ โฃ๐“ชโฃ๐“ชอ˜
๐’ทโฃ โฃ๐“‚โฃ๐“‚อ˜
๐“›โฃ๐“›อ˜
๐’ณโฃ๐’ณอ˜
๐“Ÿ
๐’ท
๐“˜โฃ๐“˜อ˜
๐’ฐโฃ๐’ฐอ˜
Dipthongs:
๐“ โฃ๐“ซ
๐’ธโฃ๐“ƒ
๐“™โฃ๐“š
๐’ฑโฃ๐’ฒ

For additional details see vowel_mappings.

Vowel letters

The basic set of plain vowel letters is as follows.

๐“ฃโฃ๐“ถโฃ๐“Ÿโฃ๐“ชโฃ๐“›โฃ๐“˜
๐’ปโฃ๐“Žโฃ๐’ทโฃ๐“‚โฃ๐’ณโฃ๐’ฐ

These vowels can be lengthened, accented, or nasalised using diacritics.

There is also a set of single-letter diphthongs, most of which are nasalised.

๐“™โฃ๐“ โฃ๐“ซโฃ๐“š
๐’ฑโฃ๐’ธโฃ๐“ƒโฃ๐’ฒ

Combining marks used with vowels

ฬ„โฃฬ‹โฃฬโฃอ˜

Osage vowels can be followed by 4 combining marks, although only the one used for nasalisation is in common use. These are described in the sections that follow.

Standalone vowels

tbd

Vowel length

ฬ„โฃฬ‹

Although vowel length can occasionally produce contrasting pairs in Osage, it is generally difficult to perceive, can vary in application, and the rules are not clearly established. Long vowels may be shortened in unstressed positions, however short vowels can be lengthened in questions. Vowels at the end of a word are normally short.wl,#Vowel_clusters_and_long_vowels

As with the accent marks, length is not indicated in the text of the Osage Nation language-learning curricula, and these characters are only likely to be used for precise phonetic labelling of words.

Long vowels can be indicated using ̄ [U+0304 COMBINING MACRON] above the vowel, eg. ๐“ฌ๐“˜ฬ„๐“น๐“ชฬ

If the vowel is long and also accented, use ̋ [U+030B COMBINING DOUBLE ACUTE ACCENT], eg. ๐“ฐ๐“˜ฬ‹๐“œ๐“˜อ˜

This list shows the set of long vowels.e

๐“ฃฬ„โฃ๐“ฃฬ„อ˜โฃ๐“ฃฬ‹โฃ๐“ฃฬ‹อ˜โฃ๐“ถฬ„โฃ๐“ถฬ‹โฃ๐“Ÿฬ„โฃ๐“Ÿฬ‹โฃ๐“ชฬ„โฃ๐“ชฬ„อ˜โฃ๐“ชฬ‹โฃ๐“ชฬ‹อ˜โฃ๐“˜ฬ„โฃ๐“˜ฬ„อ˜โฃ๐“˜ฬ‹โฃ๐“˜ฬ‹อ˜

Nasalisation

อ˜

Nasalisation is very common in Osage words. Normally it is indicated using  ͘  [U+0358 COMBINING DOT ABOVE RIGHT] after the vowel, eg. ๐“ฏ๐“ชอ˜๐“ค๐“Ÿ However, 3 diphthongs place the dot inside the letter, and so are represented using precomposed characters.wl,#Phonology

This list shows the set of nasalised vowels.

๐“ฃอ˜โฃ๐“ชอ˜โฃ๐“›อ˜โฃ๐“˜อ˜โฃ๐“ โฃ๐“ซโฃ๐“š

It is easy to find words still written in the older style orthography, where nasalisation is indicated using ^ [U+005E CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT], eg. ๐“จ๐“˜อ˜๐“บ๐“Ÿ๐“ฎ๐“ค๐“˜ was formerly written ๐“จ๐“˜^๐“บ๐“Ÿ๐“ฎ๐“ค๐“˜

Pitch accents

ฬ

To signal pitch accents use  ́ [U+0301 COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT], eg. ๐“ก๐“˜ฬ๐“ฌ๐“˜

This list shows the set of non-lengthened vowels with pitch accents.

๐“ฃฬโฃ๐“ฃฬอ˜โฃ๐“ถฬโฃ๐“Ÿฬโฃ๐“ ฬโฃ๐“ชฬโฃ๐“ซฬโฃ๐“˜ฬโฃ๐“˜ฬอ˜โฃ๐“šฬโฃ๐“™ฬ

The Osage Nation does not use these accent marks in their online language courses. They are likely to be used only for precise phonetic labelling of words, such as one might find in a dictionary.

Vowel absence

tbd

Vowel sounds to characters

This section maps Osage vowel sounds to common graphemes in the Osage orthography, grouped by lowercase ( l ) and uppercase ( u ). Click on a grapheme to find other mentions on this page (links appear at the bottom of the page). Click on the character name to see examples and for detailed descriptions of the character(s) shown.

Plain vowels

Diphthongs

Consonants

Consonant summary table

The following table summarises the main consonant to character assigments.

The left column is lowercase, and the right uppercase.

Stops
๐“ฌโฃ๐“ฌสผโฃ๐“œโฃ๐“ฐโฃ๐“คโฃ๐“คสผโฃ๐“ฆโฃสผ
๐“„โฃ๐“„สผโฃ๐’ดโฃ๐“ˆโฃ๐’ผโฃ๐’ผสผโฃ๐’พ
๐“ญโฃ๐“ฑโฃ๐“ฅโฃ๐“ณโฃ๐“ž
๐“…โฃ๐“‰โฃ๐’ฝโฃ๐“‹โฃ๐’ถ
Affricates
๐“ฒโฃ๐“ฒสผโฃ๐“โฃ โฃ๐“ด
๐“Šโฃ๐“Šสผโฃ๐’ตโฃ โฃ๐“Œ
Fricatives
๐“ตโฃ๐“ฎโฃ๐“บโฃ๐“ฏโฃ๐“ปโฃ๐“ธโฃ๐“นโฃ๐“กโฃ๐“ข
๐“โฃ๐“†โฃ๐“’โฃ๐“‡โฃ๐““โฃ๐“โฃ๐“‘โฃ๐’นโฃ๐’บ
Nasals
๐“จโฃ๐“ฉ
๐“€โฃ๐“
Other
๐“ทโฃ๐“ง
๐“โฃ๐’ฟ

For additional details see consonant_mappings.

Basic consonants

๐“ฌโฃ๐“œโฃ๐“ฐโฃ๐“คโฃ๐“ฆ
๐“„โฃ๐’ดโฃ๐“ˆโฃ๐’ผโฃ๐’พ
๐“ฒโฃ๐“ดโฃ๐“
๐“Šโฃ๐“Œโฃ๐’ต
๐“ตโฃ๐“ฎโฃ๐“บโฃ๐“ฏโฃ๐“ปโฃ๐“ธโฃ๐“นโฃ๐“กโฃ๐“ข
๐“โฃ๐“†โฃ๐“’โฃ๐“‡โฃ๐““โฃ๐“โฃ๐“‘โฃ๐’นโฃ๐’บ
๐“จโฃ๐“ฉ
๐“€โฃ๐“
๐“ทโฃ๐“ง
๐“โฃ๐’ฟ

Ejectives

สผ

Ejectives are written using ʼ [U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE], eg. compare ๐“ฒสผ๐“Ÿ๐“ค๐“˜ ๐“ฒ๐“Ÿ๐“ค๐“˜ There are only 3 ejective sounds.

๐“ฌสผโฃ๐“คสผโฃ๐“ฒสผ

Aspiration

Pre-aspiration

Osage words may contain pre-aspirated stops and affricates, however some dialects pronounce these instead as geminated consonants. For this reason, the orthography has a set of single letters that can be used to represent either a pre-aspirated or an equivalent geminated sound.

๐“…๐“ญโฃ๐“‰๐“ฑโฃ๐’ฝ๐“ฅโฃ๐“‹๐“ณโฃ๐’ถ๐“ž

The lessons offered by the Osage Nation website don't contain any of these letters, as part of the simplification of the orthography intended to help people learn to write Osage. Pre-aspirated sounds are not distinguished from normal sounds. For example, deer สฐtษ‘ฬห is written ๐“ฐ๐“˜ rather than ๐“ฑ๐“˜. These letters may be used, however, for dictionaries or other places where the orthography needs to be more precise.

Post-aspiration

Sounds that were formerly post-aspirated are mostly represented by digraphs ending in 𐓸 [U+104F8 OSAGE SMALL LETTER KHA] or 𐓯 [U+104EF OSAGE SMALL LETTER SHA] , which are used in complementary fashion, eg. ๐“ช๐“ฌ๐“ธ๐“˜ However, the single letter 𐓴 [U+104F4 OSAGE SMALL LETTER TSHA] is an allograph of 𐓰𐓸 [U+104F0 OSAGE SMALL LETTER TA + U+104F8 OSAGE SMALL LETTER KHA].

๐“ฌ๐“ธโฃ๐“ฌ๐“ฏโฃ๐“ฐ๐“ธโฃ๐“ดโฃ๐“ค๐“ธโฃ๐“ค๐“ฏ

Onsets

tbd

Finals

tbd

Consonant clusters

Consonant clusters do occur in the Osage script, per the conventions of the syllable structure (see structure), but are not indicated in any special way.

Consonant length

tbd

Consonant sounds to characters

This section maps Osage vowel sounds to common graphemes, grouped by lowercase ( l ) and uppercase ( u ). Click on the character names to see examples.

Stops

p
l
 
u
สฐp
pp
l

𐓬 [U+104EC OSAGE SMALL LETTER PA] (and its uppercase form) is currently used in Osage Nation curricula, eg. ๐“ฌ๐“˜๐“บ๐“Ÿ, however the following letter is also available:

𐓭 [U+104ED OSAGE SMALL LETTER EHPA], eg. ๐“ญ๐“˜๐“บ๐“Ÿ.

 
u
px
pสƒ
l
pห€
 l
 
u
bษน
l
 
u
t
l
 
u
สฐt
tt
l

𐓰 [U+104F0 OSAGE SMALL LETTER TA] (and its uppercase form) is currently used in Osage Nation curricula, eg. ๐“ฐ๐“˜, however the following letter is also available:

𐓱 [U+104F1 OSAGE SMALL LETTER EHTA], eg. ๐“ฑ๐“˜.

 
u
tx
tสƒ
l
k
l
 
u
สฐk
kk
l

𐓤 [U+104E4 OSAGE SMALL LETTER KA] (and its uppercase form) is currently used in Osage Nation curricula, eg. ๐“ค๐“Ÿ, however the following letter is also available:

𐓥 [U+104E5 OSAGE SMALL LETTER EHKA], eg. ๐“ฅ๐“Ÿ.

 
u
kx
kสƒ
l
kห€
l
 
u
kสฒ
l
 
u
ส”
 

Affricates

tอกs
l
 
u
สฐtอกs
l

𐓲 [U+104F2 OSAGE SMALL LETTER TSA] (and its uppercase form) is currently used in Osage Nation curricula, eg. ๐“ฒ๐“ฃ, however the following letter is also available:

𐓳 [U+104F3 OSAGE SMALL LETTER EHTSA], eg. ๐“ณ๐“ฃ.

 
u
tอกsสฐ
l
 
u
tอกsห€
l
 
u
tอกสƒ
l
 
u
สฐtอกสƒ
l

𐓝 [U+104DD OSAGE SMALL LETTER CHA] (and its uppercase form) is currently used in Osage Nation curricula, eg. ๐“ท๐“ฃ๐“๐“ช๐“ฏ๐“ฌ๐“˜, however the following letter is also available:

𐓞 [U+104DE OSAGE SMALL LETTER EHCHA], eg. ๐“ท๐“ฃ๐“ž๐“ช๐“ฏ๐“ฌ๐“˜.

 
u

Fricatives

Nasals

Other

Numbers

Digits

Osage uses ASCII digits.

Text direction

Osage text runs left to right in horizontal lines.

Show default bidi_class properties for characters in the Osage orthography described here.

Glyph shaping & positioning

Experiment with examples using the Osage character app.

Context-based shaping & positioning

Osage letters don't interact, so no special shaping is needed.

Base characters carry combining mark, which need to be positioned correctly.

Case & character transforms

Osage is bicameral, and applications may need to enable transforms to allow the user to switch between cases.

Graphemes

Grapheme clusters

Osage graphemes are typically single characters, with an optional combining mark to indicate nasalisation. Up to 2 more combining marks can be added to indicate vowel length and accents.

Unicode grapheme clusters can be applied to Osage without problems. There are no special issues related to operations that use grapheme clusters as their basic unit of text.

Punctuation & inline features

Word boundaries

Osage words are separated by spaces.

In the early stages of the use of the Osage script syllables within a word were separated by periods, eg. ๐“ง๐“˜.๐“ฌ๐“ธ๐“˜อ˜.๐“ค๐“Ÿ. This is no longer the case. Syllable boundaries are, in any case, easily identified in Osage text.

Phrase & section boundaries

,โฃ;โฃ:โฃ.โฃ?โฃ!

Osage uses standard ASCII punctuation for phrase boundaries.

phrase

, [U+002C COMMA]

; [U+003B SEMICOLON]

: [U+003A COLON]
sentence

. [U+002E FULL STOP]

? [U+003F QUESTION MARK]

! [U+0021 EXCLAMATION MARK]

The following dashes are used.

โ€โฃโ€“โฃโ€”

Bracketed text

(โฃ)

Osage commonly uses ASCII parentheses to insert parenthetical information into text.

  start end
standard

( [U+0028 LEFT PARENTHESIS]

) [U+0029 RIGHT PARENTHESIS]

Quotations & citations

โ€œโฃโ€โฃโ€˜โฃโ€™

Osage texts use quotation marks around quotations instead. Of course, due to keyboard design, quotations may also be surrounded by ASCII double and single quote marks.

  start end
initial

“ [U+201C LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK]

 ” [U+201D RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK]
nested

‘ [U+2018 LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK]

 ’ [U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK]

The default quote marks for Osage are โ€œ [U+201C LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK] at the start, and โ€ [U+201D RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK] at the end.

When an additional quote is embedded within the first, the quote marks are โ€˜ [U+2018 LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK] and โ€™ [U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK].

Abbreviation, ellipsis & repetition

โ€ฆ

Line & paragraph layout

Line breaking & hyphenation

tbd

Lines are primarily broken at word boundaries.

Line-edge rules

As in almost all writing systems, certain punctuation characters should not appear at the end or the start of a line. The Unicode line-break properties help applications decide whether a character should appear at the start or end of a line.

Show (default) line-breaking properties for characters in the modern Osage orthography.

The following list gives examples of typical behaviours for some of the characters used in Osage. Context may affect the behaviour of some of these and other characters.

Click/tap on the characters to show what they are.

  • โ€œ โ€˜ (   should not be the last character on a line.
  • โ€ โ€™ ) . , ; ! ? %   should not begin a new line.

Baselines, line height, etc.

Osage uses the so-called 'alphabetic' baseline, which is the same as for Latin and many other scripts.

Osage has ascenders and descenders, and diacritics that sit above and below the base letters. However, the metrics match those of the Latin script.

To give an approximate idea, fig_baselines compares Latin and Osage glyphs from the Noto Sans Osage font. All the metrics can be seen to be about the same.

Hhqx๐“›อ˜๐“ฬ‹๐“œ๐’ด๐“คสผ๐’พ๐’บ๐“ข๐“Ÿฬ„๐’ธ๐““
Font metrics for Latin text compared with Osage glyphs in the Noto Sans Osage font.

fig_baselines_other shows similar comparisons for the Barnsdall font.

Hhqx๐“›อ˜๐“ฬ‹๐“œ๐’ด๐“คสผ๐’พ๐’บ๐“ข๐“Ÿฬ„๐’ธ๐““
Latin font metrics compared with Osage glyphs in the Barnsdall font.

Counters, lists, etc.

Osage uses a decimal numeric counter style with ASCII digits. The default separator is a full stop + space.

Page & book layout

Page layout for Osage follows the same practices as for US English text written in Latin script.

Historical information

Orthographic development & variants

Changes introduced in 2014 include the following:e

  1. The introduction of case pairs.
  2. 'Pre-aspirate' consonants were changed from digraphs to single characters. eg. ๐“ก๐“ฌ hp became ๐“ญ pสฐ
  3. Two ligatures representing consonant clusters were abolished: stอกs became ๐“ฎ๐“ฒ; and sk became ๐“ฎ๐“ค.
  4. Nasalisation was previously indicated in one of 2 ways: using ^ after a vowel or using _ below a diphthong, eg. ๐“˜^ a^ รฃ ๐“˜ฬฑ aฬฑ aฤฉThis was replaced by a dot, generally placed at the upper right side of the vowel using a combining character, or appearing within the letter for a diphthong, in which case a new letter was created, eg. ๐“˜อ˜ aหœ รฃ
  5. The sounds x and ษฃ were previously both represented by a single character. The reform created a separate letter form for each, ie. ๐“ธ x x ๐“น ษฃ ษฃ

Another recent change in the orthography sees the discontinuation of the practice of separating syllables within a word by periods, eg. the formerly written ๐“ท๐“˜.๐“ฎ๐“˜.๐“ฌ๐“Ÿ is now written ๐“ท๐“˜๐“ฎ๐“˜๐“ฌ๐“Ÿ

Online resources

  1. Osage language tools word list
  2. Osage Dictionary preview, Carolyn Quintero

References