The Written Language of the Sioux (from Pictographs to the Modern Day)

Many have heard of Sequoyah creating a writing system for the Cherokee. But what about the Plains Indians? Did the Sioux have a written language?

The Sioux had more than one system of written communication. They originally used pictographs to preserve their history, but the real breakthrough for Siouan writing came in 1836 when two missionaries moved into Sioux territory and connected the Siouan sounds to the English alphabet. The Sioux were then in possession of a writing system with which they could communicate precisely.

The Language of Pictures

The Sioux Indians were known for hunting buffalo. They used the buffalo hides for blankets, bedding, and robes. They also decorated these hides with beautiful patterns and scenes of Sioux life.

Often a Sioux Indian would paint a pictograph on a buffalo robe to represent one winter in the life of his tribe. He would do this for a whole series of winters and paint the pictographs side by side or in a spiraling formation. A group of pictographs representing tribal history was called a winter count. One well-known winter count is the Lone Dog Winter Count. That winter count is a record of 71 years of Sioux history. 1

While pictographs cannot express concepts and events as precisely as an alphabet system, the Sioux were able to create a record of their history with these winter counts. Because of this pictographic record, we do not need to rely on oral tradition alone to learn the history of the Sioux.

A Written Language

In 1836, two brothers, Samuel and Gideon Pond moved to Minnesota in hopes of doing mission work among the Sioux. Mission work was their priority, but they considered learning the Siouan language and creating a writing system for the Siouan language an important part of that mission work. They began learning the language immediately.

Learning the language from scratch was a complicated process. It is one thing to learn a language when you can sit down with a book in which the grammar is systematically laid out, but it takes much more effort to piece words together and try to figure out the grammar by ear. Nonetheless, within a year the Pond brothers were able to communicate easily with the Sioux, and they had made progress in creating a writing system.

The Pond brothers did not try to create a new alphabet for the Siouan language. They simply took the English letters and applied them to the Siouan sounds. Some English letters were found to be useless in Siouan because there was no equivalent sound in the Siouan language. Also, some sounds in the Siouan were unique and were not represented by English letters. The Pond brothers took the unused English letters and paired them with the unique Siouan sounds. Soon they had developed a system, but it was untested.

A Dakota Sioux man named Mazardhamani had apparently been paying close attention to the missionaries as they were developing their writing system. He went to the missionaries and asked them to teach him to read. The Pond brothers now had a chance to see if their writing system would work. Mazardhamani quickly caught on to the writing system. He was the first Dakota to learn to read and write. The Pond alphabet was a success. 2

Siouan for the Future

The early pictographs of the Sioux were an important part of Sioux history, and many Sioux artists continue in that tradition today. They paint beautiful works of art inspired by the history of their people. They mix traditional forms of Sioux painting with contemporary styles. This is an approach to art which stands in the present but keeps respect for the traditions of the past alive. 

Meanwhile, the Dakota dialect of Siouan is an endangered language today. The number of fluent speakers is rapidly decreasing, and many of the fluent speakers are elderly. 3 The writing system which the Ponds helped develop is proving an indispensable teaching aid in the movement to revitalize the Siouan language.

Come and see handcrafted miniatures inspired by the Sioux Indians on our Etsy shop…

Footnotes

1. Edwin Schupman and Leslie O’Flahavan, Lone Dog’s Winter Count. National Museum of the American Indian. Accessed Oct. 3, 2020 https://americanindian.si.edu/sites/1/files/pdf/education/poster_lone_dog_final.pdf
2. S. W. Pond Jr, Two Volunteer Missionaries Among the Dakotas (Boston and Chicago: Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society, 1893), 50-59 https://archive.org/details/twovolunteers00pondrich/mode/2up
3. DIO, Status of Dakota Language. Dakhóta iápi Okhódakičhiye. Accessed October 3, 2020 https://dakhota.org/status-of-dakota-language/