Evenki orthography

Evenki orthgraphy uses three different scripts, depending on the region. In Russia, a Cyrillic-based alphabet enjoys official status, while in China two scripts are used: Latin (various forms) and the Mongolian script (experimentally).

Preliterate period

Before the 20th century, the Evenki language had no orthography of its own, although material regarding the language was fixated in the 18th and 19th centuries repeatedly by various investigators, who used various orthographical systems in their writings. Thus, the first texts in the language were published in 1705 in a second edition of a book by Nicolaes Witsen "Noord en Oost Tartarye," which contains a translation of a prayer into Evenki, written in the Latin alphabet. Earlier, Evenki words were documented by Philip Johan von Strahlenberg, Peter Simon Pallas, Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt and other investigators. For their notes they used both the Latin alphabet and various Cyrillic alphabets. In 1865 the first scientific grammar of the Evenki language, written by Matthias Castrén, was published.

The first attempts at the creation of Evenki orthography were made by missionaries of the Bible Society in Russia. In 1818 they translated excerpts of the New Testament. The Cyrillic alphabet was used in the translations, which were never published after all. Some publications claim that "Тунгусский букварь" (in English, "Tungus language children's primer (or ABC-book), written 1858), as well as the dictionary and translation of the Gospel of Matthew that followed it, were in the Evenki language. However, in reality, these books were written in the Ola dialect of the Even language.

Latin alphabets

The creation of Evenki orthography began in the 1920s. In May of 1928 investigator Glafira Makar'yevna Vasilyevich wrote «Памятку тунгусам-отпускникам» (lit. Memo for Tungus vacationers) for Evenkis studying in what was then Leningrad. It was small methodical, enacted on a piece of glass. In it was the Evenki Latin-based alphabet created by Vasilyevich. A year later she compiled the book «Первая книга для чтения на тунгусском языке,» or «Әwәnkil dukuwuntin,» lit. "First book for reading in the Tungus language." This alphabet had the following letters: Aa Bb Чч Dd Ӡӡ Ee Әә Gg Hh Ii Kk Ll Mm Nn Ŋŋ Oo Pp Rr Ss Tt Uu Ww Yy; it also included diacritic marks: a macron, to indicate a lengthened vowel and a 'under-letter comma' (modernist cedilla), to indicate palatalization.