Orthography

Written Paiute is not governed by an authoritative standards body, and as such, the orthography used by local communities and scholars to represent the language varies. I see these standards as falling into three major groups:

• Linguistic orthographies that sacrifice aesthetics in order to faithfully transcribe the sounds recorded in fieldwork. These are common in Paiute grammars produced as doctoral theses, and in the usage examples within entries in the Northern Paiute-Bannock Dictionary.
• Standard (for lack of a better term) orthography represents Paiute in a way that broadly aligns with the majority of languages using the Roman alphabet. Northern Paiute-Bannock Dictionary entry headings and the Northern Paiute Language Project "linguistic orthography" are examples of these.
• Wycliffe orthography is designed to be convenient for English speakers, using only ASCII characters and vowel representations that match English orthography following the Great Vowel Shift.

A "standard" orthography is most convenient for my own reading and reference (particularly looking up words in NP-B), so I use one across the site. This orthography is functionally equivalent to the one in NP-B while making some adjustments for aesthetics, clarity, and ease of use. I use NP-B entry headings as the authoritative source for spelling, and when multiple spellings are listed, I use the one that aligns with Pyramid Lake pronunciation received in class.

Pyramid Lake and the UNR course taught to its standard use Wycliffe. Material on this site from that course is provided with accompanying Wycliffe representations, as given.

This site	NP-B	NPLP	Wycliffe	IPA	Notes
a	a	a	a	[a]
âi	ai	ai	ae	[e]	Pyramid Lake features an [e] where other dialects have [ai], and its Wycliffe system reflects that with ae. I use a circumflex as a mnemonic to remember to pronounce [e] while remaining faithful to dictionary spelling.
b	b	b	b	[b], [β]
d	d	d	d	[d], [ɾ]
dz	dz	dz	tz	[dz]	The difference between dz and z is a little murky, at least in Pyramid Lake dialect, which tends to represent both as tz in Wycliffe. I generally follow the NP-B spelling while pronouncing words as heard spoken.
g	g	g	g	[g], [ɣ]
ģ	gw	gw	gw	[gʷ], [ɣʷ]	See ķ.
h	h	h	h	[h], [χ]
ʻ	ʔ	'	'	[ʔ]	I use a "modifier letter turned comma" character like the Hawaiian ʻokina because the typography is aesthetically pleasing, and it avoids glottal stops being misidentified as word boundaries by software when working with text on a computer.
i	i	i	e	[i]
ii	ii	ii	e, ee	[i:]
k	k	k	k	[k], [x]
ķ	kw	kw	kw	[kʷ]	This is an unusual choice, as all other Paiute orthographies use kw, but I consider it a helpful reminder that this is a distinct phoneme and not a consonant cluster.
m	m	m	m	[m]
mm	mm	mm	mm	[m:]
n	n	n	n	[n:]
ŋ	ng	ng	ng	[ŋ]	Pronouncing ng as [ŋg] instead of [ŋ] is a common error for English speakers!
o	o	o	o	[ɔ], [o]
oo	oo	oo	o	[ɔ:], [o:]
p	p	p	p	[p]
s	s	s	s	[s], [ʃ] (following [i])
ss	ss	ss	s	[s:], [ʃ:]
t	t	t	t	[t]
c	ts	ts	ts, tz	[ts]	NP-B usage examples have c for [ts], but the entry heading orthography is ts. I like c because it isn't used otherwise and keeps each phoneme corresponding to a single glyph.
ç	ch	dd	dy	[tʃ]	Another unusual choice (NP-B usage examples and Thornes use č instead), but I like the cedilla for visual consistency with ķ.
u	u	u	oo	[u]	In Wycliffe, [uʔu] (at least word-finally) is represented as oo'o.
uu	u	u	oo	[u:]	Difficulty representing [u:] is a weakness of Wycliffe.
ü	ɨ	ü	u	[ɨ]	I was tempted to use ı, but it would require retooling capital letters and may look odd or confuse people. NPLP "linguistic orthography" and some other sources use ü for this phoneme, so it is not without precedent.
üü	ɨɨ	üü	u	[ɨ:]
w	w	w	w	[w]
y	y	y	y	[j]
z	z	z	tz	[z]	Tends to sound the same as dz or Wycliffe tz in Pyramid Lake dialect.