November 23, 2024
NAMING PLACES THE PENOBSCOT WAY

Originally an oral culture, there was no official Penobscot alphabet until the 1930s, when the late linguist Frank T. Seibert Jr. used the International Phonetic Alphabet – a standardized notation system representing distinctive sounds used in all spoken languages – to devise one. Unlike the 26-letter English alphabet, the Penobscot alphabet has 25 letters, including special characters like the alpha and schwa.


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