Johnston Lykins and his co-workers developed a simple method for writing the Native American languages in which they worked and taught. Because it was to be used by people unfamiliar with written English, they didn't hesitate to put English letters to unfamiliar uses. For example, "l" in Lykins' orthography stands for "sh" as it sounds in the word "shine".
This seems to have worked well enough for the missionaries' purpose of teaching their Indian clients to read, but it adds an unnecessary element of confusion for today's Potawatomi reader or student. Consequently, we have attempted to make Lykins' translations more accessible for you by partially converting it to PBP orthography.
In order to do this, we used the "find and replace" capability of word processing software. With this command, we could change every occurrence of a letter (or group of letters) into some other letter (or group of letters). Using the above example, we changed every "l" in the original Lykins text into "sh," its PBP equivalent.
Lykins provided an orthographic key for the symbols he used in his translation, and this project has an orthographic chart. At first glance, conversion from one set of symbols to the other seemed simple. However, the charts didn't provide very good answers; when we converted, using them, we didn't see very many familiar words emerge.
So we tried another tack: we took words that we knew and compared Lykins' spelling to ours. That gave us several possible ways to convert most of the Lykins symbols. We chose the conversion functions that 1) we felt would result in the largest number of readily recognizable words, and 2) that resulted in the fewest changes.
We ended up with the following changes:
| Symbol | Sound | Example | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lykins | PBP | (PBP) | Lykins | PBP |
| r | e' | apple | qr | kwe' (woman) |
| l | sh | shy | pqrlkin | pkwe'shkIn (bkweshkIn, bread) |
| h | ch | chat | ho | co (no) |
| e | i | elite | nekan | nikan (friend) |
| i | I | pin | ntanis | ntanIs (ndanIs, daughter) |
| y | ay | pine | hyrk | caye'k (jaye'k, all) |
| q | kw | quick | qr | kwe' (woman) |
We made one final change: we eliminated all duplicated consonants. For example, if we found "kk" anywhere in a word, we changed it to "k".
Keep in mind that we did not convert the text into modern Potawatomi. Words have changed over the century and a half since Lykins worked. Usage has changed. Pronunciation has changed. Some words are no longer in use. You will not find all the words in our dictionary. Reading Lykins' translation is comparable to reading Shakespeare or Chaucer in English; the language is almost the same, but it is different enough to require some very real effort.
Lykins distinguished seventeen sounds; there are twenty-eight in PBP orthography, if you include the "semi-vowels". Consequently, several characters do double or triple duty. This is particularly true with respect to the vowels; we have found that one Lykins vowel represents as many as four PBP vowels. There is some overlap; for example modern Potawatomi words spelled with e' contain r, e, or i in Lykins' spelling. This may be due to changes in pronunciation over time, or variations in Lykins' spelling.
Here, then, is a table containing Lykins' symbols, the PBP symbols used in the converted text and all of the corresponding PBP symbols we have found that are used in modern Prairie Band pronunciation of the same words, with examples.
| Symbol | Sound | Example | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lykins | Conv'd text | PBP | Lykins | PBP | Lykins | Converted text | PBP (Modern) |
| a | a | a | far | father | ako | ako | ago (that over there) |
| r | e' | e' I e |
mane | pat fit pet |
Klrminrto Klrminrto pqrlkin |
Kshe'mIne'to Kshe'mIne'to pkwe'shkIn |
Kshe'mnIto
(God) Kshe'mnIto bkweshkIn (bread) |
| e | i | i e' y |
me | me pat yes |
nekan Hesus pean |
nikan Cisus pian |
nikan (friend) She'zhos (Jesus) byan (come) |
| i | I | I e' e |
pin | pin pat |
ntanis meni sin |
ntanIs minI sIn |
ndanIs mine' (and, again) sen (stone) |
| o | o | o | note | note | nkom | nkom | ngom (today) |
| u | u | u a e |
tub | book father pet |
kelkuk okuma qutak |
kishkuk okuma kwutak |
gizhguk (day) ogama (king) kwetak (hill) |
| w | w | w | groove | groove | wapuk | wapuk | wabuk (tomorrow) |
| y | ay | ay | pine | pine | hyrk | caye'k | jaye'k (all) |
| k | k | k g |
hack | hack get |
qr nkot |
kwe' nkot |
kwe' (woman) ngot (one) |
| m | m | m | aim | aim | mpel | mpish | mbish (water) |
| n | n | n | man | man | nako | nako | nago (yesterday) |
| p | p | p b |
tap | tap bin |
pinr mpel |
pIne' mpish |
pIne' (always) mbish (water) |
| t | t | t d |
hat | hat had |
mtatso mtatso |
mtatso mtatso |
mdatso (ten) mdatso |
| q | kw | kw gw |
quart | quart ch |
qr weqam |
kwe' wikwam |
kwe' (woman) wigwam (house) |
| h | c | c j sh |
chat | chat jet shine |
ho hyrk Hesus |
co chaye'k Cisus |
co (no) jaye'k (all) She'zhos (Jesus) |
| l | sh | sh zh |
shine | shine leisure |
lonea kelkuk |
shonia kishkuk |
shonya (money) gizhguk (day) |
| s | s | s z zh |
case | case maze leisure |
sin psukwen Hesus |
sIn psukwin Cisus |
sen (stone) bzugwIn (get up!) She'zhos (Jesus) |
If you have gotten this far, you have figured out that reading the gospel in Potawatomi is not going to be a piece of cake. It will probably be a challenge, even if you are fluent in Potawatomi. If you are a beginning student, please don't give up, thinking that it is much too difficult for you. The fact that the English translation is right there and that many of the words are in the dictionary will help you. You may not understand every word, but you can add to your vocabulary and increase your working knowledge of the language.
If you have a reasonable working knowledge of Potawatomi, we believe that you will be able to bypass the problems that our large table suggests lie before you. Get comfortable with the orthography (which is summarized on the same page as the text) and simply read the text, read for the sound of it, aloud if necessary. Many of the problems associated with the unfamiliar orthography will disappear, as the words ring familiarly in your ears.
