c - the ‘ts’ sound in tsk, tsunami, tsar, catsup, hotspot, cats, suits.

č - the ‘ch’ sound in Charlie, church, churlish

h - the breathy ‘h’ in “aha!”

k - the soft ‘k’ in skate, skip, skin; not the hard ‘k’ in Kate, king, kind.

p - soft ‘p’ as in spot, special, spice; not the hard ‘p’ in pop, pot, pebble.

s - as in snake, snout, sassy.

t - soft ‘t’ as in stop, stay, sting; not the hard ‘t’ in top, Tom, talk,

w - as in water, wash, window

[ ‘ ] - glottal stop as in uh-oh

Pawnee has a total of 16 sounds in the Skidi dialect, and 18 sounds in the Southband dialect. That’s not very many sounds! And all of the sounds are found in English.

A big thank you to our Pawnee tribal linguists, Taylor Moore and Zach Rice for choosing a writing system that is so straightforward.

Pawnee Language Learning is a reader-supported publication. To support the Pawnee Language Program, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Get full access to Pawnee Language Learning at pawneelanguagelearning.substack.com/subscribe