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A shorthand that became a script.
Also known as: Chinook writing
The script devised as a French shorthand and adapted into a full writing system for several Indigenous languages of North America.
Writes French, English and several Indigenous North American languages in joined geometric strokes.
Contexts: Language and transcription, History
Began as a stenographic shorthand and was adopted by missionaries and communities as an ordinary orthography, so a system built for speed became a script for languages that had none — an unusual promotion from shorthand to writing.
Contexts: Language and transcription, History
Simple geometric strokes — straight lines, arcs and circles — joined into continuous outlines, written without a baseline in some adaptations.