3x4 keypad only types numbers even when in the letter mode is shown

I hope anybody can help me out. Any tips would be very much appreciated! I changed the keyboard input mode from qwerty to 3x4, as I can't manage the small buttons of qwerty. I realize the 3x4 has a letter mode, a number mode and a symbols mode. I can see the alphabet characters on-screen, but pressing them produces numbers. _This is me typing 'hello' on the keypad, once with XT9 on and again with it off._ To get 'h' I would tap the ghi button twice, but it yields '44' instead. I checked there is a language selected for predictive text. I really want to get this working without installing a third-party keyboard, as I did that before and the nature of my device's low internal memory really makes it difficult. Running Android 2.3.6, Cyanogenmod Revolution Light build