Overview

A writing system, or orthography, is a set of visual symbols or characters used to represent language and communicate meaning in written form.

Most of the Indigenous languages of the NWT use a Latin/Roman orthography, with a few additional letters, such as the barred l «Ł», glottal stop «Ɂ» and turned e «Ǝ». Accents, or diacritical marks, are placed on vowels to indicate tone and nasalization. These are important aspects of the NWT Indigenous languages orthographies, particularly in Dene languages.

NWT Indigenous languages keyboard

Most computers in North America come with US standard keyboard layout installed. Like most other languages, including French, Indigenous languages require an alternative keyboard layout to enter the additional letters and accents.

The Indigenous NT keyboard is a universal keyboard for all the NWT’s official Indigenous languages. It can be used as your standard keyboard as all the special characters and diacritics are accessed by the right hand Alt key.

Install the keyboard on your computer or mobile device or computer now. An online keyboard is also available that can be used in your web browser which doesn't require you to install anything.

AutoCorrect for Indigenous languages

AutoCorrect is a word processing feature that identifies misspelled words and automatically corrects spellings as you type.

The GNWT has developed an AutoCorrect script for Microsoft Office applications (e.g.: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook). This allows you to install NWT place names and other commonly used words and phrases with the proper Indigenous languages letters and accents into your Microsoft Office dictionary.

Click here for the AutoCorrect installation file.

To access the file, extract the zip folder and ensure all files are saved in the same folder. Once extracted, open the .bat file to run the script and update the dictionary autocorrect.