Although the Cree Literacy Network maintains its preference for Standard Roman Orthography, the syllabic system still retains a healthy collection of advocates. An interesting — but lengthy — read for both sides of the discussion is presented in the 1981 M.Ed. thesis of Native speaker John Murdoch, completed at the University of Manitoba.
Particularly interesting are his comparison of syllabics to Pittman’s shorthand, and non-Aboriginal preference for roman-based systems — and of course, the persistence of syllabics (as of 1981, and now, into the 21st century).
I’ve added this important document as a “page” under “Reading Plains Cree in SRO” above so it doesn’t get lost. Here’s a link to that page:
http://wp.me/P1kr7j-nE
