Chukchi Language - Orthography

Orthography

Until 1931, the Chukchi language had no official orthography, in spite of attempts in the 1800s to write religious texts in it.

At the beginning of the 1900s, Vladimir Bogoraz discovered specimens of pictographic writing by the Chukchi herdsman Tenevil. Tenevil's writing system was his own invention, and was never used beyond his immediate family. The first official Chukchi alphabet was devised by Bogoraz in 1931 and was based on the Latin script:

А а	Ā ā	B b	C c	D d	Е е	Ē ē	Ә ә
Ӛ ӛ	F f	G g	H h	I i	Ī ī	J j	K k
L l	M m	N n	Ŋ ŋ	O o	Ō ō	P p	Q q
R r	S s	T t	U u	Ū ū	V v	W w	Z z
Ь ь

In 1937, this alphabet, along with all of the other alphabets of the non-Slavic peoples of the USSR, was replaced by a Cyrillic alphabet. At first it was the Russian alphabet with the addition of the digraphs К’ к’ and Н’ н’. In the 1950s the additional letters were replaced by Ӄ ӄ and Ӈ ӈ. These newer letters were mainly used in educational texts, while the press continued to use the older versions. At the end of the 1980s, the letter Ԓ ԓ was introduced as a replacement for Л л. This was intended to reduce confusion with the pronunciation of the Russian letter of the same form. The Chukchi alphabet now stands as follows:

А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Д д	Е е	Ё ё	Ж ж
З з	И и	Й й	К к	Ӄ ӄ	Ԓ ԓ (Л л)	М м	Н н
Ӈ ӈ	О о	П п	Р р	С с	Т т	У у	Ф ф
Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Ш ш	Щ щ	Ъ ъ	Ы ы	Ь ь
Э э	Ю ю	Я я	'