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.
Writing Penobscot
Have feedback? Want to know more? Send us ideas for follow-up stories.
Comments
comments for this post are closed