TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Tue Apr 30 19:19:20 EDT 2024
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James Evans
A British immigrant in Canada (1801-1846) who developed the syllabic writing systems for Ojibwa, and then Cree (with initials, syllables and finals making up the alphabet). In 1840, he started the Rossville Mission Press and had to use rather primitive methods of printing. An excerpt from Roderick Cave's The Private Press (1983, R.R. Bowker Co., New York): A Wesleyan Methodist missionary, the Rev. James Evans, had been at work among the Ojibway Indians in Canada since 1822 and had published a Speller and Interpreter in English and Ojibway in New York. Evans, however, like many missionaries, found the roman alphabet less than ideal to represent the sounds of speech in native tongues and eventually (by 1840) perfected a system of 36 syllables he believed would meet all the needs of the Canadian Indian languages. Evans reported that those in his mission at Norway House could read and write it with ease and fluency. At first he copied out his syllabics by hand on pieces of birchbark. These proved so popular that he realized he must resort to printing. But there was a difficulty, quite apart from the lack of type for his syllabary: the Hudsons Bay Company, which controlled all transport, was not in favor of making the Indians literate and refused to bring in a press. Being a man of much determination, Evans built his own primitive press on the model of the fur presses used at the trading posts. He also overcame the problem of providing type, for which he used musket balls and the linings of tea chests melted down. With some coarse paper and with ink contrived of soot and oil, in 1841 Evans printed 100 copies of a 16-page booklet containing the syllabary and some Bible texts and hymns translated into Cree. This effort was enough to overcome the skepticism of the church authorities about the value of his syllabary. They had a regular font of the type cut in England, and the Hudsons Bay Company withdrew its opposition. With the new type and a small handpress shipped in via Hudsons Bay, Evans and his successors at the mission continued work under rather easier circumstances. Image of his syllabery. |
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Luc Devroye ⦿ School of Computer Science ⦿ McGill University Montreal, Canada H3A 2K6 ⦿ lucdevroye@gmail.com ⦿ http://luc.devroye.org ⦿ http://luc.devroye.org/fonts.html |