What native american tribe had a written language before america was settled?

Answer 1

The only native American groups to have written forms of language before contact with Europeans were the Olmecs, Aztecs, Mixtecs, Toltecs, Maya and their neighbours in Mexico and Central America.

A number of tribes in the USA and Canada developed writing systems after they had been exposed to the writing of Europeans, including the Cree, Cherokee and various others. Since these were inspired by and influenced by European writing, their status as purely native written language is more than suspect.

Answer 2

It is believed that the Olmecs of Mexico developed a writing system over 3,000 years ago - he oldest known writing in the Americas.

The Zapotecs in the same area had writing by 500 BC (2,500 years ago); Mayan glyphs appeared in Yucatan, Honduras, Guatemala and Belize by about 250 BC (2,250 years ago).

All of these were fully-developed and complete writing systems, able to record the sounds of their respective languages.

Almost all native American peoples throughout the Americas developed a system of pictographs which are essentially simple ways of reminding the viewer about events, people and places, but they are not a proper writing system. They are closely related to the primitive prehistoric pictographs of Australian aborigines and the cave art of Europe. The Nazca desert glyphs also come under this category.

The pictographs developed by the Chippewas/Ojibwe for their mide ceremonies are also thought to be "memory-joggers" rather than a proper linguistic script.

The Cherokee writing system was only inspired by English writing in newspapers and books and is essentially modern in date (no earlier than 1821), so it does not really count as a purely native writing system.

The link below takes you to an image of Olmec glyphs:

Answer 3

No native American ever produced an alphabet, which is a writing system where each written sign represents a single letter.

Sequoyah of the Cherokee people developed a syllabary, not an alphabet, where each sign represents a syllable from the Cherokee language. This was not a purely native development, since Sequoyah had already been familiar with newspaper, books and other material written in English. Many of the signs he used are based directly on English letters, but with completely different values.

The name Sequoyah is written ᏎᏉᏯ in this syllabary.

Answer 4

Cherokee, their syllabary began development in 1809, by 1824 it was in widespread use by the tribe, and settled into its current stable form in 1828.

Answer 5

The Cherokees.