Writing Micmac in the Latin Script

A romanized transcription of the Micmac language was devised by Silas T. Rand, but was initially discouraged. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the Catholic missionaries were keen to use and promote indigenous resources. Secondly, early French settlers feared that Micmac literacy in the Roman alphabet would provide access to secular and political publications which might breed contempt for the French. By encouraging literacy in hieroglyphics they offered the Micmac knowledge of a select number of Catholic publications without affording them full access to French society. However, Romanized letters continued to be used and in 1974 a new Roman orthography was developed which more accurately represented the sounds of the language. The language is now written using this orthography.

This article formerly appeared on ScriptSource.