Duployan letter Ee

It marks a vowel in Duployan shorthand. Shorthand uses compact signs to record speech; this letter by itself does not identify a complete spoken word. This vowel keeps one orientation instead of turning to meet neighboring letters. It can also orient the joined outline of an abbreviation made only of vowels.

How Duployan reached Indigenous-language writing

Émile Duployé developed his French shorthand to record speech quickly and published the system in 1860. In 1890, Catholic missionary Jean-Marie-Raphaël Le Jeune adapted Duployan for Chinuk pipa, a way of writing Chinook Jargon—a regional trade language—and neighboring Indigenous languages. The Kamloops Wawa newspaper began in 1891 with shorthand lessons, prayers, and local news.

Indigenous readers formed local teaching groups, exchanged letters, and sent reports and notices for publication. The newspaper also carried Catholic instruction. As English-language schooling expanded in the early 20th century, colonial assimilation policies helped displace Chinuk pipa.