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US History Encyclopedia:

Cherokee Language

The Cherokee homeland at the time of European contact was located in the highlands of what would later become the western Carolinas and eastern Tennessee. Contact with anglophone and, to a lesser extent, francophone Europeans came early to the Cherokee, and their general cultural response—adaptation while trying to maintain their autonomy—is mirrored in their language.

In the history of Native American languages, the singular achievement of Sequoyah, an illiterate, monolingual Cherokee farmer, is without parallel. Impressed by the Europeans' ability to communicate by "talking leaves," Sequoyah in the early nineteenth century set about, by trial and error, to create an analogous system of graphic representation for his own language. He let his farm go to ruin, neglected his family, and was tried for witchcraft during the twelve years he worked out his system. The formal similarity with European writing—a system of sequential groups of discrete symbols in horizontal lines—belies the complete independence of the underlying system. What Sequoyah brought forth for his people was a syllabary of eighty-four symbols representing consonant and vowel combinations, and a single symbol for the consonant "s." By about 1819, he had demonstrated its efficacy and, having taught his daughter to use it, what followed was a rapid adoption and development of literacy skills among the tribe. By 1828, a printing press had been set up, and a Newspaper, The Cherokee Phoenix, and other publications in the Cherokee syllabary were produced for tribal consumption.

The removal of the Cherokees from their homeland to Oklahoma in 1838–1839 ("The Trail of Tears") necessitated the reestablishment of the printing press in the independent Cherokee Nation, where native language literacy continued to flourish, to the point where the literacy rate was higher than that of the surrounding white population. In 1906, Cherokee literacy was dealt a severe blow when the United States government confiscated the printing press, evidently as a prelude to incorporating the Cherokee Nation into the State of Oklahoma.

The Cherokee language is the only member of the Southern branch of the Iroquoian language family. The Northern branch—which includes Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, and Tuscarora—is geographically fixed in the area of the eastern Great Lakes, and it seems likely that the ancestors of the Cherokee migrated south from that area to the location where they first contacted Europeans. Because of the substantial differences between Cherokee and the Northern languages, it may be inferred that the migration took place as early as 3,500 years ago.

Today, there are about ten thousand who speak Cherokee in Oklahoma and one thousand in North Carolina. Most are over fifty years of age.

Bibliography

Pulte, William and Durbin Feeling. "Cherokee." In Facts About The World's Languages: An Encyclopedia of the World's Major Languages, Past and Present. Edited by Jane Garry and Carl Rubino. New York: H. W. Wilson, 2001, 127–130.

Walker, Willard. "Cherokee." In Studies in Southeastern Indian Languages. Edited by James M. Crawford. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1975, 189–196.

—Gary Bevington

 
 
Wikipedia: Cherokee language
Cherokee
ᏣᎳᎩ ᎧᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ

(tsa-la-gi ga-wo-ni-hi-is-di)
Spoken in: Oklahoma, North Carolina 
Region: Oklahoma and the Cherokee Reservation in Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina
Total speakers: 15,000 to 22,000
Language family: Iroquoian
 Southern Iroquoian
  Cherokee 
Writing system: Cherokee syllabary
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: chr
ISO 639-3: chr 
Cherokee language spread in the United States.
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.
Original distribution of the Cherokee language
Enlarge
Original distribution of the Cherokee language

Cherokee (Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩ; Tsalagi) is an Iroquoian language spoken by the Cherokee people which uses a unique syllabary writing system. It is the only Southern Iroquoian language that remains spoken. Cherokee is polysynthetic, places an emphasis on syllables, and is very complex to learn for English-speakers.

For years, many people wrote transliterated Cherokee on the Internet or used poorly intercompatible fonts to type out the syllabary. However, since the fairly recent addition of the Cherokee syllables to Unicode, the Cherokee language is experiencing a renaissance in its use on the Internet. As of January 2007, however, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma still officially uses a non-unicode font for online documents, including online editions of the Cherokee Phoenix.

The Cherokee language does not contain any "r" based sounds, and as such, the word "Cherokee" when spoken in the language is expressed as Tsa-la-gi (pronounced Jah-la-gee, or Cha-la-gee) by native speakers, since these sounds most closely resemble the English language. A Southern Cherokee group did speak a local dialect with a trill consonant "r" sound, after early contact with Europeans of both French and Spanish ancestry in Georgia and Alabama during the early 18th century (This "r" sound spoken in the dialect of the Elati, or Lower, Cherokee area – Georgia and Alabama – became extinct in the 19th century around the time of the Trail of Tears, examples are Tsaragi or Tse-La-gee). The ancient Ani-kutani (ᎠᏂᎫᏔᏂ) dialect and Oklahoma dialects do not contain any 'r'-based sounds.

Phonology

Cherokee only has one labial consonant, /m/, which is relatively new to the language, unless one counts the Cherokee w a labial instead of a velar.

Consonants

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Aspirated stop t k
Unaspirated stop d g ʔ
Affricate ʦ
Fricative s h
Nasal m n
Approximant j ɰ
Lateral l

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid e ə̃ o
Open a

Diphthongs

Cherokee has only one diphthong native to the language:

  • ai  /ai/

Another exception to the phonology above is the modern Oklahoma use of the loanword "automobile," with the /ɔ/ sound and /b/ sound of English.

Tone

Cherokee has a robust tonal system in which tones may be combined in various ways, following subtle and complex tonal rules that vary from community to community. While the tonal system is undergoing a gradual simplification in many areas (no doubt as part of Cherokee's often falling victim to second-language status), the tonal system remains extremely important in meaning and is still held strongly by many, especially older speakers. It should be noted that the syllabary does not normally display tone, and that real meaning discrepancies are rare within the native-language Cherokee-speaking community. The same goes for transliterated Cherokee ("osiyo," "dohitsu," etc.), which is rarely written with any tone markers, except in dictionaries. Native speakers can tell the difference between tone-distinguished words by context.

Grammar

Cherokee, like many Native American languages, is polysynthetic, meaning that many morphemes may be linked together to form a single word, which may be of great length. Cherokee verbs, the most important word type, must contain as a minimum a pronominal prefix, a verb root, an aspect suffix, and a modal suffix. Consider the following verb:

Verb form ge:ga
g- e: -g -a
PRONOMINAL PREFIX VERB ROOT "to go" ASPECT SUFFIX MODAL SUFFIX

For example, the verb form ge:ga, "I am going," has each of these elements. The pronominal prefix is g-, which indicates first person singular. The verb root is -e, "to go." The aspect suffix that this verb employs for the present-tense stem is -g-. The present-tense modal suffix for regular verbs in Cherokee is -a.

Verbs can also have prepronominal prefixes, reflexive prefixes, and derivative suffixes. Given all possible combinations of affixes, each regular verb can have 21,262 inflected forms.

Writing system

Main article: Cherokee syllabary

Cherokee is written in an 85-character syllabary invented by Sequoyah (also known as George Guess). Some symbols do resemble Latin alphabet letters, but with completely different sound values; Sequoyah had seen English writing, but didn't know how to read it.

Due to the polysynthetic nature of the Cherokee language, new and descriptive words in Cherokee are easily constructed to reflect or express modern concepts. Some good examples are di-ti-yo-hi-hi (Cherokee:ᏗᏘᏲᎯᎯ) which means "he argues repeatedly and on purpose with a purpose". This is the Cherokee word for attorney. Another example is di-da-ni-yi-s-gi (Cherokee:ᏗᏓᏂᏱᏍᎩ) which means the final catcher or "he catches them finally and conclusively". This is the Cherokee word for policeman.

Many words, however, have been adopted from the English language – for example, gasoline, which in Cherokee is ga-so-li-ne (Cherokee:ᎦᏐᎵᏁ). Many other words were adopted from the languages of tribes who settled in Oklahoma in the early 1900s. One interesting and humorous example is the name of Nowata, Oklahoma. The word "nowata" is a Delaware word for "welcome" (more precisely the Delaware word is "nu-wi-ta" which can mean "welcome" or "friend" in the Delaware language). The white settlers of the area used the name "nowata" for the township, and local Cherokees, being unaware the word had its origins in the Delaware language, called the town a-ma-di-ka-ni-gv-na-gv-na (Cherokee:ᎠᎹᏗᎧᏂᎬᎾᎬᎾ) which means "the water is all gone gone from here" -- i.e. "no water".

Other examples of adopted words are ka-wi (Cherokee:ᎧᏫ) for coffee and wa-tsi (Cherokee:ᏩᏥ) for watch (which led to u-ta-na wa-tsi (Cherokee:ᎤᏔᎾ ᏩᏥ) or "big watch" for clock).

Computer representation

Cherokee is represented in Unicode, in the character range U+13A0 to U+13F4.

    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
13A0   Ꭰ Ꭱ Ꭲ Ꭳ Ꭴ Ꭵ Ꭶ Ꭷ Ꭸ Ꭹ Ꭺ Ꭻ Ꭼ Ꭽ Ꭾ Ꭿ
13B0   Ꮀ Ꮁ Ꮂ Ꮃ Ꮄ Ꮅ Ꮆ Ꮇ Ꮈ Ꮉ Ꮊ Ꮋ Ꮌ Ꮍ Ꮎ Ꮏ
13C0   Ꮐ Ꮑ Ꮒ Ꮓ Ꮔ Ꮕ Ꮖ Ꮗ Ꮘ Ꮙ Ꮚ Ꮛ Ꮜ Ꮝ Ꮞ Ꮟ
13D0   Ꮠ Ꮡ Ꮢ Ꮣ Ꮤ Ꮥ Ꮦ Ꮧ Ꮨ Ꮩ Ꮪ Ꮫ Ꮬ Ꮭ Ꮮ Ꮯ
13E0   Ꮰ Ꮱ Ꮲ Ꮳ Ꮴ Ꮵ Ꮶ Ꮷ Ꮸ Ꮹ Ꮺ Ꮻ Ꮼ Ꮽ Ꮾ Ꮿ
13F0   Ᏸ Ᏹ Ᏺ Ᏻ Ᏼ                      

A single Cherokee font is supplied with Mac OS X, version 10.3 (Panther) and later and Windows Vista. Cherokee is also supported by free fonts found at languagegeek.com, and the shareware fonts Code2000 and Everson Mono.

Language drift

There are two main dialects of Cherokee spoken by modern speakers. The Giduwa dialect (Eastern Band) and the Otali Dialect (also called the Overhill dialect) spoken in Oklahoma. The Otali dialect has drifted significantly from Sequoyah's Syllabary in the past 150 years, and many contracted and borrowed words have been adopted into the language. These noun and verb roots in Cherokee, however, can still be mapped to Sequoyah's Syllabary. In modern times, there are more than 85 syllables in use by modern Cherokee speakers. Modern Cherokee speakers who speak Otali employ 122 distinct syllables in Oklahoma.

Drifted Otali Sequoyah Syllabary Mapping
Otali Syllable Sequoyah Syllabary Index Sequoyah Syllabary Char Sequoyah Syllable
nah 32 Ꮐ nah
hna 31 Ꮏ hna
qua 38 Ꮖ qua
que 39 Ꮗ que
qui 40 Ꮘ qui
quo 41 Ꮙ quo
quu 42 Ꮚ quu
quv 43 Ꮛ quv
dla 60 Ꮬ dla
tla 61 Ꮭ tla
tle 62 Ꮮ tle
tli 63 Ꮯ tli
tlo 64 Ꮰ tlo
tlu 65 Ꮱ tlu
tlv 66 Ꮲ tlv
tsa 67 Ꮳ tsa
tse 68 Ꮴ tse
tsi 69 Ꮵ tsi
tso 70 Ꮶ tso
tsu 71 Ꮷ tsu
tsv 72 Ꮸ tsv
hah 79 Ꮿ ya
gwu 11 Ꭻ gu
gwi 40 Ꮘ qui
hla 61 Ꮭ tla
hwa 73 Ꮹ wa
gwa 38 Ꮖ qua
hlv 66 Ꮲ tlv
guh 11 Ꭻ gu
gwe 39 Ꮗ que
wah 73 Ꮹ wa
hnv 37 Ꮕ nv
teh 54 Ꮦ te
qwa 06 Ꭶ ga
yah 79 Ꮿ ya
na 30 Ꮎ na
ne 33 Ꮑ ne
ni 34 Ꮒ ni
no 35 Ꮓ no
nu 36 Ꮔ nu
nv 37 Ꮕ nv
ga 06 Ꭶ ga
ka 07 Ꭷ ka
ge 08 Ꭸ ge
gi 09 Ꭹ gi
go 10 Ꭺ go
gu 11 Ꭻ gu
gv 12 Ꭼ gv
ha 13 Ꭽ ha
he 14 Ꭾ he
hi 15 Ꭿ hi
ho 16 Ꮀ ho
hu 17 Ꮁ hu
hv 18 Ꮂ hv
ma 25 Ꮉ ma
me 26 Ꮊ me
mi 27 Ꮋ mi
mo 28 Ꮌ mo
mu 29 Ꮍ mu
da 51 Ꮣ da
ta 52 Ꮤ ta
de 53 Ꮥ de
te 54 Ꮦ te
di 55 Ꮧ di
ti 56 Ꮨ ti
do 57 Ꮩ do
du 58 Ꮪ du
dv 59 Ꮫ dv
la 19 Ꮃ la
le 20 Ꮄ le
li 21 Ꮅ li
lo 22 Ꮆ lo
lu 23 Ꮇ lu
lv 24 Ꮈ lv
sa 44 Ꮜ sa
se 46 Ꮞ se
si 47 Ꮟ si
so 48 Ꮠ so
su 49 Ꮡ su
sv 50 Ꮢ sv
wa 73 Ꮹ wa
we 74 Ꮺ we
wi 75 Ꮻ wi
wo 76 Ꮼ wo
wu 77 Ꮽ wu
wv 78 Ꮾ wv
ya 79 Ꮿ ya
ye 80 Ᏸ ye
yi 81 Ᏹ yi
yo 82 Ᏺ yo
yu 83 Ᏻ yu
yv 84 Ᏼ yv
to 57 Ꮩ do
tu 58 Ꮪ du
ko 10 Ꭺ go
tv 59 Ꮫ dv
qa 73 Ꮹ wa
ke 07 Ꭷ ka
kv 12 Ꭼ gv
ah 00 Ꭰ a
qo 10 Ꭺ go
oh 03 Ꭳ o
ju 71 Ꮷ tsu
ji 69 Ꮵ tsi
ja 67 Ꮳ tsa
je 68 Ꮴ tse
jo 70 Ꮶ tso
jv 72 Ꮸ tsv
a 00 Ꭰ a
e 01 Ꭱ e
i 02 Ꭲ i
o 03 Ꭳ o
u 04 Ꭴ u
v 05 Ꭵ v
s 45 Ꮝ s
n 30 Ꮎ na
l 02 Ꭲ i
t 52 Ꮤ ta
d 55 Ꮧ di
y 80 Ᏸ ye
k 06 Ꭶ ga
g 06 Ꭶ ga

Cherokee language in popular culture

The theme song "I Will Find You" from the 1992 film The Last of the Mohicans by the band Clannad features Máire Brennan singing in Cherokee as well as Mohican.

See also

References

  • Pulte, William, and Durbin Feeling. 2001. Cherokee. In: Garry, Jane, and Carl Rubino (eds.) Facts About the World's Languages: An Encyclopedia of the World's Major Languages: Past and Present. New York: H. W. Wilson. (Viewed at the Rosetta Project)
  • Scancarelli, Janine. "Cherokee Writing." The World's Writing Systems. 1998: Section 53. (Viewed at the Rosetta Project)

Notes

    Further reading

    • Bruchac, Joseph. Aniyunwiya/Real Human Beings: An Anthology of Contemporary Cherokee Prose. Greenfield Center, N.Y.: Greenfield Review Press, 1995. ISBN 0912678925

    External links

    Wikipedia
    Cherokee language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Wiktionary
    Cherokee language edition of Wiktionary, the free dictionary/thesaurus
    Wikibooks
    Wikibooks has more on the topic of
    Cherokee
    Flag_of_Oklahoma.svg Languages of Oklahoma

    American English · Spanish · Cherokee · Creek · Choctaw · Chickasaw

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