Itelmen Language - Orthography

Orthography

Itelmen is not standardized and does not have a separate literary variety. A retelling of Itelmen mythology was written in Russian by Krasheninnikov. Folk language (only recordings from the 20th century survive, Western language) does not show special characteristics compared to the conversational language.

Writing based on Latin graphemes was introduced in 1932 (an alphabet book and arithmetic textbook were published). Teaching from the alphabet book of 1932 (authored by ethnographer Elizabeth Porfirevna Orlova and co-produced by a group of Itelmen students) lasted several years; but after alphabets for "Northern" languages were transformed into Cyrillic at the end of the 1930s, Itelmen writing was abolished. Itelmen became an unwritten language and remained that way for almost a half century.

The modern Itelmen alphabet was created in 1984 on a Cyrillic base and in 1988 was confirmed by the Russian Ministry of Education. A second Itelmen alphabet book was created in 1988. An Itelmen-Russian/Russian-Itelmen dictionary and second-grade textbook were also published. In 1993 the Itelmen alphabet book was republished. Itelmen has been taught as a subject in elementary grades, but teachers do not speak the language like the students. In 2002 a translation of the Gospel of Luke was published in Itelmen. All of these works are published in the Southern dialect.

A deepening sign (˚) and glottal stop sign (ʼ) are also used in instructional works. In the sequence of instructionally published signs Ă ă, Ŏ ŏ, Ў ў are not considered separate letters. Also, in many publications "Ԓ ԓ" and "Ӽ ӽ" are used in place of the letters "Ӆ ӆ" and "Ҳ ҳ" (for example in the Historical Ethnographic Handbook of Itelmen, Krasnodar, 2005).

The newspaper Native of Kamchatka, which regularly publishes works in Itelmen, does not use the letters 'Ă ă, Ŏ ŏ, Ў ў but does use the deepening sign (˚).