The Chinook Pipa script, an adaptation by father Jean Marie Raphael LeJeune
of the Duployéan shorthand, is an historic script used for writing the Chinook
Jargon and other languages of interior British Columbia. Its original use and
greatest surviving attestation is from the run of the Kamloops Wawa, a
(mostly) Chinook Jargon newsletter of the Catholic diocese of Kamloops, British
Columbia, published 1891-1923. At the time, the Chinook Jargon trade language
was spoken in an area encompassing SE Alaska, most of British Columbia,
Washington State, western Montana, Oregon, Idaho, far northern California, and
communities further afield. Although the Chinook Jargon was the lingua franca in
many of these communities, it was generally a spoken, rather than written
language. Most attempts at documentation used the Latin script to approximate
Jargon phonology, and indeed, dictionaries of the Chinook Jargon are still
readily available in many of these Latinate orthographies. In contrast, the
archives of the Kamloops Wawa, written in Chinook Pipa, includes a
considerable dictionary, but also constitutes a 3+ decade corpus of Chinook
Jargon usage, during the height of its spread and utility. There currently
exists no formal encoding, in any context, for the representation of the Chinook
Pipa, and the only informal representation is transliteration by means of the
Latin orthographies used in writing the Chinook Jargon. Indeed, the submission
of the Chinook Pipa script to UCS has necessitated the creation, from scratch,
of the first Chinook typeface, such an effort currently underway with glyph
images available for review.
Chinook Pipa contains several classes of letters, differentiated by visual
form - hence script function - and phonetic value. Letter classes include the
line and arc consonants, circle vowels (A and the O/W vowels), nasal vowels, arc
vowels, and non-conjoiners. Since Chinook Pipa is an adaptation of a shorthand
system, strings of letters are intended, generally, to join together cursively
to form nominally syllabic units. Many Pipa letters have variant forms,
including compound letters and overlapping concatenated behaviors for
initialisms and abbreviations. Excepting for reverse stroke direction of a few
letters, Chinook Pipa is written LTR, quasi-syllable by syllable, in horizontal
lines proceeding down the page, as with most European scripts.
Ordering of the characters in the Chinook Pipa is undefined - the only
lexicon using the script cites nominally in Latin alphabetical order - so
allocation order in the Chinook Pipa Character Block is revisable up to
inclusion in the standard. Essentially, a Unicode Standard that includes a
Chinook Pipa Character Block will be the only official ordering of the script.
The currently proposed allocation ordering and its basis is as follows:
According to Father LeJeune's Chinook
Rudiments, the characters encoded x00-x09 (P,T,F,K,L,M,N,Sh,S,O) double
as the numbers 1-9&0. x09 - x0C (O,A,Oo,Ow) constitute the next basic vowels
given in his introduction, with W+ forms 16 code points later. x0D (I) is
another simple vowel with a W+ form 16 code points later and a variant form 32
code points later. x0E rounds out the basic vowels given in LeJeune's
repertoire, while x0F (H) is a non-conjoining simple consonant with a Salish
variant 16 code points later. The second column of the allocation begins
(x10-x14; B,D,V,G,R) with the voiced counterparts (elongated form) of the first
five consonants (x00-x04). x15 is reserved for a form of x05, and x16-x18
(Ng,Ch,Ts) are the dot modified forms of x06-x08. x19-x1D (Wo,Wa,Woo,Wow,We) are
the W+ forms of the vowel sequence in column 1: x09-x0D. x1E is reserved,
ostensibly, for another W+ vowel variant. Rounding out the second column is the
Salish complement to 'H', ie x1F (X). The third column is generally given to
compound consonants and vowel variants, with two code points (x20&x21)
reserved for theroetical 'P' and 'B' compounds. x22-x24 (Th,Dh,Kh) are
'T','D',&'K' variants. x25 is for a putative 'G' compound, while x26 &
x27 (Lh,Rhh) are 'L' and 'R' compounds. x28-x2A are reserved for consonant
compounds, and x2B (K') and x2C (hL) are the K/G and L/R compounds. x2D (E) is a
variant of x0D sharing a shape and properties, but having a different
orientation in many conjoining environments. x2E (Uh) is the dot modified
variant of x0E and x0F is a reserved codepoint. In the last column come the
Nasal Vowels, x30-x33 (An,In,On,Un) that only intermittently appear in the Wawa
texts, but are neither composed characters nor variants. Next is the logograph
/likalisti/ meaning eucharist at x24 with the code points x25-x2D again
reserved, this time for any other logographs encountered in Pipa texts and any
compound vowels or vowel variants unearthed through scholarship into private
Pipa texts. Ending the allocation are the Chinook Pipa Full Stop (x3E) and the
Virama-like Chinook Pipa Concatenator (x3F) which encodes for abbreviations and
similar constructions in the script.
The Chinook Pipa script has gone by many names. The most common of these are "Chinook Pipa" and "Wawa Writing". The former, meaning Chinook writing in Chinook Jargon was used both as a Chinook Jargon and English name for the script. The latter was generally used only in an English context. It has been suggested that the name of the script could simply be "Chinook", and there is some merit, considering the redundancy of the phrase "Chinook Pipa script".
Some discussion has also centered around the glyph names having "old" phonetic values. Specifically, the phonemes represented by the characters "Oo" (x1A) and "U" (x1E) are found in modern orthography as "U" and "Yu" respectively. Given that the transliterations found in the source materials for the script, as well as in most historic lexica, and even used in modern place names, all converge on the historic (Oo/U) transliteration, it is felt that the given character names are the most transparent.
The character CHINOOK PIPA LETTER KK is used to represent the "crossed K",
thought to indicate a glotallized K' sound. Likewise CHINOOK PIPA LETTER DH
indicates the voiced Th sound.
No information is available on alphabetization, as the dictionary portions of
the Chinook
Rudiments text are given in roughly Latin alphabetical order. Other sources group words
by novel alphabetization, no more or less canonical than any other. The most
logical ordering, given the structure of the script, would be along the lines of
P, B, T (Th), D (Dh), F, V, K (Kh, K'), G, L (Lh, hL), R (Rhh), M, N (Ng), Sh
(Ch), S (Ts), O (Wo), A (Wa), I, E (We), Oo (Woo), Ow (Wow), U (Uh), H (X) then
An, In, On, and Un. Given that alphabetization is not a defined property of the
Unicode Standard, it would seem that the above or simple binary order would more
than suffice for any implementation needing an order of alphabetization.
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The Chinook Pipa script has a standard cursive conjoining behaviour effected
by the use of the Zero Width Non-Joiner. The Zero Width Non-Joiner (ZWNJ)
encodes a syllabic break, overriding the standard conjoining of all characters
except H and X. The ZWNJ and Zero Width Joiner have no effect when adjacent an H
or X. This contrasts slightly with its usage in other scripts, where it
generally encodes for conjoining forms rather than conjoining
behaviour in Chinook Pipa. Also, because of conjoining behaviour being
the default, there is no general use for the Zero Width Joiner, except the
abnormal instance of joining Chinook Pipa characters in running text to
characters from other scripts with joining properties, the default behaviour in
this instance being unjoined. For lists consisting of Chinook Pipa characters
and, for example, a medial form of an Arabic character (eg. Sh + medial Alef +
M) a sequence like Sh + ZWNJ + ZWJ + Alef + ZWJ + ZWNJ + M should be used.
The most common form of character interaction is that of the cursive
connection. The termination of the stroke of an initial character leads directly
into the beginning of the next character. Circle vowels are connected on their
perimeter at a tangent to adjacent consonants and I/E. The vowels "I", "E", and
"U" rotate to connect without angle to a preceding character and with minimal
angle into following characters. The letter "Oo" connects with preceding
characters as normal, but in flowing handwritten text most often cursively
connects with a following character at the nub, which orients to a position
dictated by the adjacent consonants. Words are often split into nominally
syllabic units with ZWNJ, H, or X, with breaks occuring between syllables
containing circle and W- vowels and in other environments, such rules being
generally algorithmic, but best handled manually or with spell-checking and
other word-processing features, given variations in syllable breaking among the
dozen or so Chinook Pipa orthographies for different languages.
Normally, Chinook Pipa letters conjoin together cursively. There is, however,
a variant joining behaviour, in which adjacent consonants will overlap,
signifying an abbreviation, initialism, or acronym (denoted CCx). The
Chinook Pipa Concatenator (CPC: 
, U+x3F), signifies this alternate concatenating behaviour, much like
the Virama in Indic scripts indicating conjunct letters. The CPC is interlocuted
between the effected consonants, signifying the concatenating interaction of the
two letters.
| Figure 1-2.Concatenated Consonant formation in Chinook Pipa | |
(1) S + CPC + T → STx
+ +
→  |
(2) Sh + CPC + K → JKx
+ +
→  |
(3) S + CPC + B + CPC + Sh →
SBShx
+ + +
+ →  |
(4) I + T + CPC + S → I.TSx
+ +
+ →  |
(5) T + CPC + K → TKx
+ +
→  |
(6) S + CPC + S → Sx
+ +
→  |
The Chinook Pipa script uses several combining diacritical marks, including
an over-dot, underdot, diaeresis, and under diaeresis. The macron, under-macron,
acute, and breve are also found in Salishan texts. These last four do not place
directly above (or below) their base letter, but are instead shifted right, so
their left-hand extreme is directly over the center of the base letter. The
under macron has only been found in combination with acute, as some writers
(mostly LeJeune) move the macron below a vowel to avoid collision with the acute
placed above that vowel.
The Chinook Pipa nasal vowels have a combining behaviour unlike any other characters. In certain circumstances, they take the form of a diacritic mark over the intersection of the two adjacent characters, and in others they will render inline, just as a regular letter. The nasal vowels will default render displaced - as a diacritic - if adjacent two conjoining consonants, ie not H, X, or separated by ZWNJ. In all other circumstances - adjacent an H, X, ZWNJ, or vowel - a nasal vowel will be rendered cursively connected to an adjacent (non-H/X) consonant or in isolation. ZWNJ will override displaced rendering by splitting an adjacent consonant into another syllable and enabling in-line rendering attached to the other consonant. A displaced nasal vowel will render below the intersection of adjacent consonants if room is not available above.
| Figure 1-5.Nasal Vowel rendering | |
(1) D + An + S → DanS
+ + →
 |
(2) L + An + P → LanP
+ + →
 |
(3) H + An + D → HAnD +
+ →  |
(4) S + E + V + In → SEVIn +
+ + →  |
(5) A + I + L + An + D →
AILanD
+ + +
+ →  |
(6) A + I + L + ZWNJ + An + D → AIL.AnD
+ +
+ ZWNJ + + → .png) |
The other characters in the Chinook Pipa - the letters "H" and "X", Full
Stop, and "Likalisti" sign - do not typographically interact with other letters.
The letters "H" and "X" split syllables fore and aft. The Chinook Pipa Full Stop
character is used fairly frequently like a period or colon, probably due to
these punctuations' similarity to Chinook Pipa letters. The logograph
"Likalisti", meaning eucharist is found in several texts and should be
spaced as a word, not as a syllable.
Chinook letters conjoin regularly by fairly simple rules. All consonants have
a stroke direction - for P/B, F/V, K/G, M/N, and all variants, the stroke
direction is top-down; for T/D, L/R, Sh/S, and variants, stroke direction is
left to right. Consonants join with the stroke termination of the first
consonant marking the beginning of the second consonant's stroke. Consonants, I,
and E join to circular vowels and circular vowels to consonants, I, and E at
tangent angles. In source texts, the circles are actually continuations of the
consonant strokes moving into and out of the circular vowel form. Vowels often
combine beneath and to the right of consonants, but generally above for the
pattern T/D/L/R preceding a circle vowel plus S/Sh/N/P/B/K/G, or the pattern L/R
+ circle vowel + T/D. Circle vowels usually combine inside the arc consonants,
M/N/Sh/S/Ng/Ch/Ts. I and U almost exclusively follow the "in from the top or
left, out down or right" rule, and E orients exactly opposite when joining a
single letter, except K/G, L/R and variants. An isolated E is also known to
render upside-down, such a distinction necessitating markup either outside the
scope of the Unicode Standard or through a variation selector. At this time, it
is thought best to leave this distinction outside Unicode until it can
determined whether such distinction is contrastive. These rules having been
given, the down/right rule will always be intelligible, though less elegant than
contextual implementations.
Archives of the Kamloops Wawa 1891-1900 (subscription required)
Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, by George Gibbs, Echo Library ISBN 1-40680-924-1
Chinook:.... A History and Dictionary, by Edward Harper Thomas, 1935, Metropolitan Press, Portland, OR)
Documentation can be found here.
