Canadian Syllabics Text Generator

Three geometric styles

Canadian syllabics 1 builds each letter from the closest syllabic shape and keeps a few Latin letters (I, K, O, T and Y) where nothing fits: “Hello” becomes ᕼᗴᒪᒪO. Canadian syllabics 2 chooses different characters for many letters, including ᐱ for A and ᓍ for O: ᕼᘿᒪᒪᓍ. Alternating Canadian syllabics switches between the two on every letter for a busier pattern: ᑕᐱᑎᐱᗪᓰᗩᘉ.

A family of real Indigenous scripts

Canadian syllabics are a family of writing systems used for Cree, Inuktitut, Ojibwe and other Indigenous languages in Canada. You will find them on signs, in newspapers and in government documents, especially in Nunavut. The design is clever: rotating a shape changes the vowel, so ᐯ, ᐱ, ᐳ and ᐸ are pe, pi, po and pa. Here the characters are borrowed only because they resemble Latin letters; ᒪ, standing in for L, is really the syllable “ma”.

The output does not spell anything in Cree, Inuktitut or any other language that uses syllabics, and readers of those languages may find it odd to see their script used this way. Keep it playful and sparing, and never present it as Indigenous text.

Practical notes

Accents are dropped, since fonts cannot place them on these shapes, and đ stays as typed. Most current phones and computers can display syllabics, but a device without a suitable font will show boxes. Screen readers may name each character, so keep important details in plain text. The unstyle tool can turn the look-alikes back into Latin capitals, and the Cherokee look-alike page offers a similar effect.

Frequently asked questions