Cheyenne has two separate dialects, Northern and Southern. The Northern dialect can be found in south-east Montana, while the Southern is in western Oklahoma. The differences among the dialects are largely lexical.

The writing system shown here has been accepted as official by the Northern Cheyenne nation. According to Risingsun and Leman, the orthography was developed by Rodolphe Petter in the 1890’s, to which a few additions have been made over the years.

Note: There are several Roman Orthography conventions on this site that may require further explanation. On the charts below, there is lots of phonetic terminology that may not be familiar to everyone.  

The United States Census counts 1570 Cheyenne speakers.

• The high vowel ‹e› is lax [ɨ].
• High tone is marked with an acute accent (á é ó)
• Middle level tone is marked with a macron accent (ā ē ō). Occasionally, a tilde (ã ẽ õ) is substituted for the macron. The macron is the preferred diacritic.
• Lowered high tone is indicated by the grave accent (à è ò).
• Where no accent appears above a vowel, the tone is low. However, in some texts, tone—especially the two middle level tones—is often left unwritten.
• Voiceless vowels are written either with a ring (å e̊ o̊) or dot accent (ȧ ė ȯ). The ring accent is generally preferred.

Last Update: August 21, 2008