Míkmaq hieroglyphic writing

Mi'kmaq hieroglyphic writing was a pictographic writing scheme and memory aid used by the Mi'kmaq.Technically, the Mi'kmaq system was logographic rather than hieroglyphic, because hieroglyphs incorporate both alphabetic and logographic information. The Mi'kmaq system was entirely logographic.It has been debated by some scholars whether the original "hieroglyphs" qualified fully as a writing system rather than merely a mnemonic device, before their adaptation for pedagogical purposes in the 17th century by the French missionary Chrétien Le Clercq. Ives Goddard and William Fitzhugh from the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution contended in 1978 that the system was purely mnemonic, because it could not be used to write new compositions. Schmidt and Marshall argued in 1995 that the newly adapted form was able to act as a fully-functional writing system, and did not involve only mnemonic functions. This would mean that the Mi'kmaq system is the oldest writing system for a North American language north of Mexico.
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