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Cherokee (ᏣᎳᎩ ᎦᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ, Tsalagi Gawonihisdi [dʒalaˈɡî ɡawónihisˈdî]) is a threatened to deathbound[a] Irokesish tung[4] and the inlandish tung of the Cherokee folk.[6][7][8] Ethnologue states that there were 1,520 Cherokee speakers out of 376,000 Cherokee in 2018,[4] while a tally by the three Cherokee theeds in 2019 recorded ~2,100 speakers.[5] The rime of speakers is in decline. About eight fluent speakers die each month, and only a handful of folk under the eld of 40 are fluent.[12] The bytung of Cherokee in Oklahoma is "definitely threatened", and the one in North Carolina is "severely threatened", so says UNESCO.[13] The Lower bytung, formerly spoken on the South Carolina–Georgia border, has been dead since about 1900.[14] The dire lay regarding the future of the two remaining bytungs prompted the Tri-Council of Cherokee theeds to declare a state of emergency in Erelithe 2019, with a call to enhance revitalization efforts.[5]
About 200 speakers of the Eastern (also referred to as the Middle or Kituwah) bytung remain in North Carolina and speech preservation efforts include the New Kituwah Academy, a bilingual immersion school.[15] The largest remaining group of Cherokee speakers is centered about Tahlequah, Oklahoma, where the Western (Overhill or Otali) bytung predominates. The Cherokee Immersion School (Tsalagi Tsunadeloquasdi) in Tahlequah serves children in federally recognized theeds from pre-school up to grade 6.[16]
Cherokee is polysynthetic,[17] the only Southern Irokesish tung,[18] and it uses a one-of-a-kind stavesetrow writing system.[19] As a polysynthetic tung, Cherokee is highly different from Indo-Europish tungs such as English, French, or Spanish, and can be difficult for adult learners to acquire.[6] A single Cherokee word can convey ideas that would need multiple English words to express, inholding the context of the assertion, connotations about the speaker, the action, and the object of the action. The morphological complexity of the Cherokee tung is best exhibited in deedwords, which comprise approximately 75% of the tung, as opposed to only 25% of the English tung.[6] Deedwords must inhold at minimum a pronominal prefix, a deedword root, an aspect suffix, and a modal suffix.[20]
Extensive documentation of the tung exists, as it is the indigenous tung of the Americas in which the most literature has been published.[21] Such publications include a Cherokee wordbook and grammar as well as several editions of the New Testament and Psalms of the Bible[22] and the Cherokee Phoenix (ᏣᎳᎩ ᏧᎴᎯᏌᏅᎯ, Tsalagi Tsulehisanvhi), the first tiding published by Inborn Americkers in the Oned Riches and the first published in a Inborn Americkish tung.[23][24]
Branding[]
Cherokee is an Irokesish tung, and the only Southern Irokesish tung spoken today. Speechlorers believe that the Cherokee folk migrated to the southeast from the Great Lakes region[citation needed] about three thousand years ago, bringing with them their tung. Despite the three-thousand-year geographic separation, the Cherokee tung today still shows some similarities to the tungs spoken about the Great Lakes, such as Mohawk, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora.
Some researchers (such as Thomas Whyte) have suggested the homeland of the or-Irokesish tung resides in Appalachia. Whyte contends, based on speechly and molecular studies, that or-Irokesish speakers participated in cultural and economic exchanges along the north-south axis of the Appalachian Mountains.[citation needed] The divergence of Southern Irokesish (which Cherokee is the only known bough of) from the Northern Irokesish tungs occurred about 4,000-3,000 years ago as Late Archaic or-Irokesish speaking folks became more sedentary with the advent of horticulture, advancement of stony technologies and the emergence of social complexity in the Eastern Woodlands. In the subsequent millennia, the Northern Irokesish and Southern Irokesish would be separated by various Algonquin and Siouan speaking folks as speechly, religious, social and technological practices from the Algonquin to the north and east and the Siouans to the west from the Ohio Valley would come to be practiced by folks in the Chesapeake land, as well as parts of the Carolinas.
Yore[]
Cherokee Heritage Center - New Hope Church - Bible cover in Cherokee script (2015-05-27 14.09.44 by Wesley Fryer)
Literacy[]
Oversetting of Genesis into the Cherokee tung, 1856
Before the development of the Cherokee stavesetrow in the 1820s, Cherokee was a spoken tung only. The Cherokee stavesetrow is a stavesetrow invented by Sequoyah to write the Cherokee tung in the late 1810s and early 1820s. His creation of the stavesetrow is particularly noteworthy in that he could not previously read any script. Sequoyah had some contact with English literacy and the Roomanish staffrow through his proximity to Fort Loundon, where he engaged in trade with Europers. He was exposed to English stafflore through his white father. His limited understanding of the Roomanish staffrow, inholding the ability to recognize the bookstaves of his name, may have aided him in the creation of the Cherokee stavesetrow.[25] When developing the written tung, Sequoyah first experimented with logograms, but his system later developed into a stavesetrow. In his layout, each token represents a staveset rather than a single speechstead; the 85 (originally 86)[26] tokens in the Cherokee stavesetrow provide a suitable method to write Cherokee. Some typeface stavesets do look like the Leeden, Greekish and even the Cyrillish scripts' bookstaves, but the clings are completely different (for byspel, the cling /a/ is written with a bookstaff that looks like Leeden D).
About 1809, Sequoyah began work to create a writing layout for the Cherokee tung.[27] At first he sought to ashapen a token for each word in the tung. He spent a year on this effort, leaving his fields unplanted, so that his friends and neighbors thought he had lost his mind.[28][29] His wife is said to have burned his initial work, believing it to be witchcraft.[27] He finally realized that this approach was not doable because it would need too many pictures to be remembered. He then tried making a token for every idea, but this also caused too many hitches to be practical.[30]
Sequoyah did not succeed until he gave up trying to represent entire words and developed a written token for each staveset in the tung. After about a month, he had a layout of 86 tokens.[28] "In their anward shape, [typeface stavesetrow not the original handwritten Stavesetrow] many of the stavesetrow tokens resemble Roomanish, Cyrillish or Greekish bookstaves or Arabish numerals," says Janine Scancarelli, a scholar of Cherokee writing, "but there is no apparent kinship between their clings in other tungs and in Cherokee."[27]
Unable to find adults willing to learn the stavesetrow, he taught it to his daughter, Ayokeh (also spelled Ayoka).[27] Langguth says she was only six years old at the time.[31] He traveled to the Indish Reserves in the Arkansaw Territory where some Cherokee had settled. When he tried to convince the local leaders of the stavesetrow's usefulness, they doubted him, believing that the tokens were merely ad hoc reminders. Sequoyah asked each to say a word, which he wrote down, and then called his daughter in to read the words back. This demonstration convinced the leaders to let him teach the stavesetrow to a few more folk. This took several months, throughout which it was rumored that he might be using the conners for sorcery. After completing the lessons, Sequoyah wrote a dictated letter to each student, and read a dictated response. This test convinced the western Cherokee that he had created a practical writing layout.[29]
When Sequoyah returned east, he brought a sealed envelope inholding a written speech from one of the Arkansas Cherokee leaders. By reading this speech, he convinced the eastern Cherokee also to learn the system, after which it spread rapidly.[28][29] In 1825 the Cherokee Theed officially adopted the writing system. From 1828 to 1834, Americkish missionaries assisted the Cherokee in using Sequoyah's original stavesetrow to develop type face Stavesetrow tokens and print the Cherokee Phoenix, the first newspaper of the Cherokee Theed, with text in both Cherokee and English.[32]
In 1826, the Cherokee Theedish Council commissioned George Lowrey and David Brown to overset and print eight copies of the laws of the Cherokee Theed in the new Cherokee tung typeface using Sequoyah's layout, but not his original self-created handwritten staveset glyphs.[30]
Once Albert Gallatin saw a copy of Sequoyah's stavesetrow, he found the stavesetrow superior to the English staffrow. Even though the Cherokee student learns 86 stavesets instead of 26 bookstaves, he can read immediately. The student could accomplish in a few weeks what students of English writing could learn in two years.[31]
In 1824, the General Council of the Eastern Cherokee awarded Sequoyah a large silver medal in honor of the stavesetrow. According to Davis, one side of the medal bore his image surrounded by the inscription in English, "Presented to George Gist by the General Council of the Cherokee for his ingenuity in the invention of the Cherokee Staffrow." The reverse side showed two long-stemmed pipes and the same inwrit written in Cherokee. Supposedly, Sequoyah wore the medal throughout the rest of his life and it was buried with him.[30]
By 1825, the Bible and many religious hymns and pamphlets, educational materials, legal documents and books were overset into the Cherokee tung. Thousands of Cherokee became syllabic and the syllabicity rate for Cherokee in the original Stavesetrow as well as the typefaced Stavesetrow, was higher in the Cherokee Theed, than that of literacy of whites in the English staffrow in the Oned Riches.
Though note of the Cherokee stavesetrow declined after many of the Cherokee were genocidally extirpated to Indish Territory, today's Oklahoma, it has survived in private correspondence, renderings of the Bible, and descriptions of Indish medicine[33] and now can be found in books and on the net among other places.
Geographic spread[]
The tung remains concentrated in some Oklahoma fellowships[34] and fellowships like Big Cove and Snowbird in North Carolina.[35]
Undertungs[]
Film of Jerry Wolfe (1924–2018), speaking in English and the Kituwah bytung of Cherokee in 2013
At the time of Europish contact, there were three major undertungs of Cherokee: Lower, Middle, and Overhill. The Lower bytung, formerly spoken on the South Carolina-Georgia border, has been extinct since about 1900.[14] Of the remaining two bytungs, the Middle bytung (Kituwah) is spoken by the Eastern band on the Qualla Boundary, and retains ~200 speakers.[4] The Overhill, or Western, bytung is spoken in eastern Oklahoma and by the Snowbird Fellowship in North Carolina[36] by ~1,300 folk.[4] The Western bytung is most widely noted and is considered the main undertung of the tung.[6][37] Both bytungs have had English inflood, with the Overhill, or Western bytung showing some Spanish inflood as well.[37]
The now dead Lower bytung spoken by the indwellers of the Lower Towns in the nearness of the South Carolina–Georgia border had r as the liquid withlide in its inventory, while both the contemporary Kituhwa bytung spoken in North Carolina and the Overhill bytung inhold l. Only Oklahoma Cherokee developed pitch. Both the Lower bytung and the Kituhwa bytung have a "ts" cling in place of the "tl" cling of the Overhill bytung. For instance, the word for 'no' is ᎥᏝ (ə̃tˤɑ or [ə̃tl̥á]) in the Overhill bytung, but ᎥᏣ (ə̃sɑ) in both the Lower and Kituhwa bytungs.
Speech drift[]
| Drifted Otali Sequoyah Stavesetrow mapping |
|---|
There are two main undertungs of Cherokee spoken by latterday speakers. The Giduwa (or Kituwah) bytung (Eastern Band) and the Otali bytung (also called the Overhill bytung) spoken in Oklahoma. The Otali bytung has drifted significantly from Sequoyah's stavesetrow in the past 150 years, and many contracted and borrowed words have been adopted into the tung. These nameword and deedword roots in Cherokee, however, can still be mapped to Sequoyah's stavesetrow. There are more than 85 stavesets in use by latterday Cherokee speakers. Latterday Cherokee speakers who speak Otali employ 122 distinct stavesets in Oklahoma.[citation needed]
Standing and preservation efforts[]
A token in Tahlequah, Oklahoma in English and Cherokee
A lesson at New Kituwah Academy on the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina. The bilingual speech immersion school, operated by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, teaches the same curriculum as other Americkish primary schools
In 2019, the Tri-Gathering of Cherokee theeds declared a state of emergency for the tung due the threat of it dying out, calling for the enhancement of revitalization programs.[5] The tung retains about 1,500[12] to 2,100[5] Cherokee speakers, but an average of 8 fluent speakers die each month, and only a handful of folk under 40 years of eld are fluent as of 2019.[12] In 1986, the literacy rate for first tung speakers was 15–20% who could read and 5% who could write, according to the 1986 Cherokee Heritage Center.[22] A 2005 survey determined that the Eastern band had 460 fluent speakers. Ten years later, the rime was believed to be 200.[38]
Cherokee is "definitely threatened" in Oklahoma and "severely threatened" in North Carolina according to UNESCO.[13] Cherokee has been the co-official tung of the Cherokee Theed alongside English since a 1991 legislation officially proclaimed this under the Act Relating to the Tribal Policy for the Promotion and Preservation of Cherokee Speech, History, and Culture.[39] Cherokee is also recognised as the revetung of the Oned Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians. As Cherokee is official, the entire constitution of the Oned Keetoowah Band is available in both English and Cherokee. As a revetung, any tribal member may communicate with the tribal government in Cherokee or English, English oversetting services are provided for Cherokee speakers, and both Cherokee and English are noted when the theed provides services, resources, and information to tribal members or when communicating with the tribal council.[39] The 1991 legislation allows the political bough of the theed to maintain Cherokee as a living tung.[39] Because they are within the Cherokee Theed tribal jurisdiction area, hospitals and health centers such as the Three Rivers Health Center in Muscogee, Oklahoma provide Cherokee tung oversetting services.[40]
Learning[]
Oklahoma Cherokee speech immersion school student writing in the Cherokee stavesetrow.
The Cherokee tung taught to preschool students at New Kituwah Academy
In 2008 The Cherokee Theed instigated a 10-year speech preservation plan that involved growing new flowing speakers of the Cherokee tung from childhood on up through school immersion programs, as well as a collaborative fellowship effort to continue to use the tung at home.[41] This plan was part of an ambitious goal that in 50 years, 80% or more of the Cherokee folk will be fluent in the tung.[42] The Cherokee Preservation Foundation has invested $4.5 million into opening schools, training teachers, and developing curricula for speech learning, as well as initiating fellowship gatherings where the tung can be actively noted. They have accomplished: "Curriculum development, teaching materials and teacher training for a total immersion program for children, beginning when they are preschoolers, that enables them to learn Cherokee as their first tung. The participating children and their parents learn to speak and read together. The Theed operates the Kituwah Academy".[42] Formed in 2006, the Kituwah Preservation & Education Program (KPEP) on the Qualla Boundary focuses on speech immersion programs for children from birth to fifth grade, developing cultural resources for the general public and fellowship speech programs to foster the Cherokee tung among adults.[43] There is also a Cherokee speech immersion school in Tahlequah, Oklahoma that educates students from pre-school through eighth grade.[44]
Several loresteads offer Cherokee as a second tung, inholding the Lorestead of Oklahoma, Northeastern Rich Lorestead, and Western Carolina Lorestead. Western Carolina Lorestead (WCU) has partnered with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Inds (EBCI) to promote and restore the tung through the school's Cherokee Studies program, which offers classes in and about the tung and culture of the Cherokee Inds.[45] WCU and the EBCI have initiated a ten-year speech revitalization plan consisting of: (1) a continuation of the improvement and expansion of the EBCI Atse Kituwah Cherokee Speech Immersion School, (2) continued development of Cherokee tung learning resources, and (3) building of Western Carolina Lorestead programs to offer a more comprehensive speech training curriculum.[45]
Reardwork[]
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Recording of an inborn Cherokee speaker from the Eastern Band
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Recording of a Cherokee tung stomp dance ceremony in Oklahoma
The speechkin of Irokesish tungs has a one-of-a-kind phonological inventory. Unlike most tungs, the Cherokee inventory of withlides lacks the labial clings p, b, f, and v. Cherokee does, however, have one labial withlide m, but it is rare, appearing in no more than ten inborn words.[46] In fact, the Lower bytung does not produce m at all. Instead, it uses w.
In the case of p, qw is often substituted, as in the name of the Cherokee Wikipedia, Wiɣiqwejdiʃ. Some words may inhold clings not reflected in the given phonology: for instance, the latterday Oklahoma use of the loanword "automobile", with the /ɔ/ and /b/ clings of English.
Withlides[]
As with many Irokesish tungs, Cherokee's phonemic inventory is small. The withlides for North Carolina Cherokee are given in the table below. The withlides of all Irokesish tungs pattern so that they may be grouped as (oral) obstruents, sibilants, laryngeals, and resonants (Lounsbury 1978:337). Obstruents are non-distinctively aspirated when they precede h. There is some variation in how orthographies represent these allophones. The orthography noted in the table represents the aspirated allophones as th, kh, and tsh. Another common orthography represents the unaspirated allophones as d, ɣ, and dz and the aspirated allophones as t, k, and s (Scancarelli 2005:359–62). The unaspirated plosives and affricate are optionally voiced intervocally. In other bytungs, the affricate is a palatal (like ch in "church"), and a lateral affricate (like tl in ‘Nahuatl’) may also be found.
| Lip | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labialized velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | t d | k ɡ | kʷ | (ʔ) | ||
| Affricate | ts | |||||
| Fricative | s | h | ||||
| Nose | m | n | ||||
| Approximant | l | j | ɰ | |||
| Lateral affricate | tɬ dɮ |
Clipples[]
There are six short clipples and six long clipples in the Cherokee inventory.[47] As with all Irokesish tungs, this includes a nasalized clipple (Lounsbury 1978:337). In the fall of Cherokee, the nasalized clipple is a mid central clipple wontly represented as v and is outspoken [ə̃], as "a" in unstressed "comma" plus the nasalization found in French un. Other clipples, when ending a word, are often also nasalized.
| Front | Middle | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i iː | u uː | |
| Mid | e eː | ə̃ ə̃ː | o oː |
| Open | a aː |
Pitch[]
Oklahoma Cherokee has six phonemic pitches, two of which are level (low, high) and the other four of which are contour (rising, falling, highfall, lowfall).[48] While the tonal layout is undergoing a gradual simplification in many areas, it remains important in meaning and is still held strongly by many, especially older, speakers. Pitch is poorly documented in North Carolina Cherokee. The stavesetrow, moreover, does not display pitch, and real meaning discrepancies[clarification needed] are rare within the mothertung Cherokee-speaking fellowship. The same goes for transliterated Cherokee ("osiyo", "dohitsu", etc.), which is seldom written with any pitch markers, except in dictionaries. Inborn speakers can tell the difference between written pitch-distinguished words by context.
Pitch inventory[]
The pitch name in the left-hand column displays the labels most recently noted in studies of the tung.[48] The second represents the pitch in standardized IPA.
| Pitch Name | IPA |
|---|---|
| Low | ˨ |
| High | ˦ |
| Rising | ˨˦ |
| Falling | ˥˩ |
| Highfall | ˥˧ |
| Lowfall | ˧˩ |
Pitch environments[]
The high and low pitches can appear on both long and short clipples in Cherokee,[49] and remain at the same pitch throughout the duration of the clipple cling. Contour pitches in Cherokee appear only in underlying long clipples.[50] At the ends of words in colloquial speech, there is a tendency to drop off a long clipple into a short clipple; this results in the highfall pitch being produced as a high pitch in faster speech. [51]
Highfall[]
Highfall has a unique grammatical usage, primarily appearing with ekends and adverbials along with most namewords derived from deedwords. It only appears in deedwords subordinate to another element of the sentence. When a highfall appears on a deedword it changes the deedword's role in the sentence, typically to one of four main categories: agentive derivation, modal, object derivation, or subordination.[52]
Grammar[]
Cherokee, like many Inborn Americkish tungs, is polysynthetic, meaning that many morphemes may be linked together to form a single word, which may be of great length. Cherokee deedwords, the most important word type, must inhold as a minimum a pronominal prefix, a deedword root, an aspect suffix, and a modal suffix.[20] For byspel, the deedword shape ge:ga, "I am going," has each of these elements:
The pronominal prefix is g-, which indicates first hoad afold atell. The deedword root is -e, "to go." The aspect suffix that this deedword employs for the anward tide stem is -g-. The anward tide modal suffix for regular deedwords in Cherokee is -a.
Cherokee has 17 deedword timings and 10 hoads.[38]
The following is a conjugation in the anward tide of the deedword to go.[53] Please note that there is no distinction between twofold and manifold in the 3rd hoad.
The oversetting uses the anward progressive ("at this time I am going"). Cherokee differentiates between progressive ("I am going") and habitual ("I go") more than English does.
The shapes ᎨᎪᎢ, ᎮᎪᎢ, ᎡᎪᎢ gegoi, hegoi, egoi represent "I often/usually go", "you often/usually go", and "she/he/it often/usually goes", respectively.[53]
Deedwords can also have prepronominal prefixes, reflexive prefixes, and derivative suffixes. Given all possible combinations of affixes, each regular deedword can have 21,262 forbowed shapes.
Cherokee does not make kin distinctions. For byspel, ᎦᏬᏂᎭ 'gawoniha' can mean either "she is speaking" or "he is speaking."[54]
Forenames and pronominal prefixes[]
Like many Inborn Americkish tungs, Cherokee has many pronominal prefixes that can index both subject and object. Pronominal prefixes always appear on deedwords and can also appear on ekends and namewords.[48] There are two separate words which function as forenames: aya "I, me" and nihi "you".
| Atell | Set I | Set II |
|---|---|---|
| Afold | ji-, g- | agi-, agw- |
| Twofold inclusive | ini-, in- | gini-, gin- |
| Twofold exclusive | osdi-, osd- | ogini-, ogin- |
| Manifold inclusive | idi-, id- | igi-, ig- |
| Manifold exclusive | oji-, oj- | ogi-, og- |
Shape classifiers in deedwords[]
Some Cherokee deedwords need special classifiers which denote a physical property of the direct object. Only about 20 common deedwords need one of these classifiers (such as the equivalents of "pick up", "put down", "remove", "wash", "hide", "eat", "drag", "have", "hold", "put in water", "put in fire", "hang up", "be placed", "pull along"). The classifiers can be grouped into five categories:
- Live
- Flexible (most common)
- Long (narrow, not flexible)
- Indefinite (solid, heavy relative to size), also noted as default kind[55]
- Liquid (or container of)
Byspel:
| Classifier Type | Cherokee | Transliteration | Oversetting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live | ᎯᎧᏏ | hikasi | Hand him (something living) |
| Flexible | ᎯᏅᏏ | hinvsi | Hand him (something like clothes, rope) |
| Long, Indefinite | ᎯᏗᏏ | hidisi | Hand him (something like a broom, pencil) |
| Indefinite | ᎯᎥᏏ | hivsi | Hand him (something like food, book) |
| Liquid | ᎯᏁᎥᏏ | hinevsi | Hand him (something like water) |
There have been reports that the youngest speakers of Cherokee are using only the indefinite shapes, suggesting a decline in usage or full acquisition of the system of shape classification.[56] Cherokee is the only Irokesish tung with this type of classificatory deedword system, leading speechlorers to reanalyze it as a potential remnant of a nameword incorporation system in Or-Irokesish.[57] However, given the non-productive nature of nameword incorporation in Cherokee, other speechlorers have suggested that classificatory deedwords are the product of historical contact between Cherokee and non-Irokesish tungs, and instead that the nameword incorporation system in Northern Irokesish tungs developed later.[58]
Word order[]
Simple declarative sentences usually have a subject-object-deedword word order.[59] Negative sentences have a different word order. Ekends come before namewords, as in English. Demonstratives, such as ᎾᏍᎩ 'nasgi' ("that") or ᎯᎠ 'hia' ("this"), come at the beginning of nameword phrases. Relative clauses follow nameword phrases.[60] Adverbs precede the deedwords that they are modifying. For byspel, "she's speaking loudly" is ᎠᏍᏓᏯ ᎦᏬᏂᎭ 'asdaya gawoniha' (literally, "loud she's-speaking").[60]
A Cherokee sentence may not have a deedword as when two nameword phrases form a sentence. In such a case, word order is flexible. For byspel, Ꮎ ᎠᏍᎦᏯ ᎠᎩᏙᏓ 'na asgaya agidoda' ("that man is my father"). A nameword phrase might be followed by an ekend, such as in ᎠᎩᏙᏓ ᎤᏔᎾ 'agidoga utana' ("my father is big").[61]
Rightspelling[]
Sequoyah, inventor of the Cherokee stavesetrow
Cherokee is written in an 85-token stavesetrow invented by Sequoyah (also known as Guest or George Gist). Many of the bookstaves resemble the Leeden bookstaves they derive from, but have completely unrelated cling values; Sequoyah had seen English, Hebrew, and Greekish writing but did not know how to read them.[62]
Two other scripts noted to write Cherokee are a simple Leeden transliteration and a more precise layout with diacritical marks.[63]
Description[]
Each of the tokens represents one staveset, as in the Yapanish kana and the Bronze Eld Greekish Linear B writing systems. The first six tokens represent isolated clipple stavesets. Tokens for combined withlide and clipple stavesets then follow. It is recited from left to right, top to bottom.[64][page needed]
The charts below show the stavesetrow as arranged by Samuel Worcester along with his commonly noted transliterations. He played a key role in the development of Cherokee printing from 1828 until his death in 1859.
The phonetic worths of these tokens do not equate directly to those represented by the bookstaves of the Leeden script. Some tokens represent two distinct phonetic values (actually heard as different stavesets), while others often represent different shapes of the same staveset.[64][page needed] Not all phonemic distinctions of the spoken tung are represented. For byspel, while /d/ + clipple stavesets are mostly differentiated from /t/ + clipple by use of different graphs, stavesets beginning with /ɡ/ are all conflated with those beginning with /k/. Also, long clipples are not ordinarily distinguished from short clipples, pitches are not marked, and there is no regular law for representing withlide clusters. However, in more recent technical literature, length of clipples can actually be indicated using a colon, and other disambiguation methods for withlides (somewhat like the Yapanish dakuten) have been suggested. Six distinctive clipple qualities are represented in the Cherokee stavesetrow based on where they are outspoken in the mouth, inholding the high clipples i and u, mid clipples e, v, and o, and low clipple a. The stavesetrow also does not distinguish among stavesets that end in clipples, h, or glottal stop. For byspel, the single token, Ꮡ, is noted to represent both su as in su:dali, meaning six (ᏑᏓᎵ), and suh as in suhdi, meaning 'fishhook' (ᏑᏗ). Therefore, there is no differentiation among the tokens noted for stavesets ending in a single clipple versus that clipple plus "h." When withlides other than s, h, or glottal stop arise with other withlides in clusters, the appropriate withlide plus a "dummy clipple" is noted. This dummy clipple is not outspoken and is either chosen whimsily or on etymological grounds (showing an underlying etymological clipple). For byspel, ᏧᎾᏍᏗ (tsu-na-s-di) represents the word ju:nsdi, meaning 'small.' Ns in this case is the withlide cluster that needs the following dummy clipple, a. Ns is written as ᎾᏍ /nas/. The clipple is included in the transliteration, but is not outspoken in the word (ju:nsdi). (The transliterated ts represents the affricate j, as in other Irokesish tungs owing to wordlorely grounds, cf. the Korean bookstaff ㅈ).[66][page needed] As with some other writing systems (like Arabish), adult speakers can distinguish words by context.
Transliteration issues[]
Some Cherokee words pose a problem for transliteration software because they inhold adjacent pairs of single bookstaff tokens that (without special provisions) would be combined when doing the back conversion from Leeden script to Cherokee. Here are a few forebisens:
- ᎢᏣᎵᏍᎠᏁᏗ = itsalisanedi = i-tsa-li-s-a-ne-di
- ᎤᎵᎩᏳᏍᎠᏅᏁ = uligiyusanvne = u-li-gi-yu-s-a-nv-ne
- ᎤᏂᏰᏍᎢᏱ = uniyesiyi = u-ni-ye-s-i-yi
- ᎾᏍᎢᏯ = nasiya = na-s-i-ya
For these forebisens, the back conversion is likely to join s-a as sa or s-i as si. Transliterations sometimes insert an apostrophe to prevent this, producing itsalis'anedi (cf. Man'yoshu).
Other Cherokee words inhold token pairs that entail overlapping transliteration sequences. Forebisens:
- ᏀᎾ transliterates as nahna, yet so does ᎾᎿ. The former is nah-na, the latter is na-hna.
If the Leeden script is parsed from left to right, longest match first, then without special provisions, the back conversion would be wrong for the latter. There are several similar forebisens involving these token combinations: naha nahe nahi naho nahu nahv.
A further problem encountered in transliterating Cherokee is that there are some pairs of different Cherokee words that transliterate to the same word in the Leeden script. Here are some forebisens:
- ᎠᏍᎡᏃ and ᎠᏎᏃ both transliterate to aseno
- ᎨᏍᎥᎢ and ᎨᏒᎢ both transliterate to gesvi
Without special provision, a round trip conversion changes ᎠᏍᎡᏃ to ᎠᏎᏃ and changes ᎨᏍᎥᎢ to ᎨᏒᎢ.[c]
Unicode[]
Cherokee was fayed to the Unicode Standard in Harvestmonth 1999 with the release of version 3.0.
Blocks[]
The main Unicode block for Cherokee is U+13A0–U+13FF.[d] It inholds the script's upper-case stavesets as well as six lower-case stavesets.
A single Cherokee Unicode font, Plantagenet Cherokee, is supplied with macOS, version 10.3 (Panther) and later. Windows Vista also includes a Cherokee font. Several free Cherokee fonts are available inholding Digohweli, Donisiladv, and Noto Sans Cherokee. Some pan-Unicode fonts, such as Code2000, Everson Mono, and GNU FreeFont, include Cherokee tokens. A commercial font, Phoreus Cherokee, published by TypeCulture, includes multiple weights and styles.[67] The Cherokee Theed Speech Technology Program supports "innovative solutions for the Cherokee tung on all digital platforms inholding smartphones, laptops, desktops, tablets and social networks."[68]
Wordhoard[]
Cherokee stop token, Tahlequah, Oklahoma, with "alehwisdiha" (also spelled "halehwisda") meaning "stop"
Cherokee traffic token in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, reading "tla adi yigi", meaning "no parking" from "tla" meaning "no"
Rimes[]
Cherokee uses Arabish numerals (0–9). The Cherokee council voted not to adopt Sequoyah's numbering system.[69] Sequoyah created individual tokens for 1–20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100 as well as a token for three noughts for rimes in the thousands, and a token for six noughts for rimes in the millions. These last two tokens, representing ",000" and ",000,000", are made up of two separate tokens each. They have a token in common, which could be noted as a nought in itself.
| English | Cherokee[70] | Transliteration | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| one | ᏌᏊ | saquu | |||
| two | ᏔᎵ | tali | |||
| three | ᏦᎢ | tsoi | |||
| four | ᏅᎩ | nvgi | |||
| five | ᎯᏍᎩ | hisgi | |||
| six | ᏑᏓᎵ | sudali | |||
| seven | ᎦᎵᏉᎩ | galiquogi | |||
| eight | ᏧᏁᎳ | tsunela | |||
| nine | ᏐᏁᎳ | sonela | |||
| ten | ᏍᎪᎯ | sgohi | |||
| eleven | ᏌᏚ | sadu | |||
| twelve | ᏔᎵᏚ | talidu | |||
| thirteen | ᏦᎦᏚ | tsogadu | |||
| fourteen | ᏂᎦᏚ | nigadu | |||
| fifteen | ᎯᏍᎦᏚ | hisgadu | |||
| sixteen | ᏓᎳᏚ | daladu | |||
| seventeen | ᎦᎵᏆᏚ | galiquadu | |||
| eighteen | ᏁᎳᏚ | neladu | |||
| nineteen | ᏐᏁᎳᏚ | soneladu | |||
| twenty | ᏔᎵᏍᎪᎯ | talisgohi |
Days[]
| English | Cherokee[70][71] | Transliteration | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Days of the Week | ᎯᎸᏍᎩᎢᎦ | hilvsgiiga | |||
| Sunday | ᎤᎾᏙᏓᏆᏍᎬ | unadodaquasgv | |||
| Monday | ᎤᎾᏙᏓᏉᏅᎯ | unadodaquohnvhi | |||
| Tuesday | ᏔᎵᏁᎢᎦ | talineiga | |||
| Wednesday | ᏦᎢᏁᎢᎦ | tsoineiga | |||
| Thursday | ᏅᎩᏁᎢᎦ | nvgineiga | |||
| Friday | ᏧᎾᎩᎶᏍᏗ | junagilosdi | |||
| Saturday | ᎤᎾᏙᏓᏈᏕᎾ | unadodaquidena |
Months[]
| Anglish | Meaning | Cherokee | Transliteration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Afteryule | Month of the Cold Moon | ᏚᏃᎸᏔᏂ | dunolvtani |
| Solmonth | Month of the Bony Moon | ᎧᎦᎵ | kagali |
| Lide | Month of the Windy Moon | ᎠᏄᏱ | anuyi |
| Eastermonth | Month of the Flower Moon | ᎧᏩᏂ | kawani |
| Threemilkmonth | Month of the Planting Moon | ᎠᎾᎠᎬᏘ | anaagvti |
| Erelithe | Month of the Green Corn Moon | ᏕᎭᎷᏱ | dehaluyi |
| Afterlithe | Month of the Ripe Corn Moon | ᎫᏰᏉᏂ | guyequoni |
| Weedmonth | Month of the End of Fruit Moon | ᎦᎶᏂᎢ | galonii |
| Harvestmonth | Month of the Nut Moon | ᏚᎵᎢᏍᏗ | duliisdi |
| Winterfulth | Month of the Harvest Moon | ᏚᏂᏅᏗ | duninvdi |
| Blootmonth | Month of Trading Moon | ᏄᏓᏕᏆ | nudadequa |
| Yulemonth | Month of the Snow Moon | ᎥᏍᎩᎦ | vsgiga |
Colors[]
| English | Cherokee | Transliteration | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| black | ᎬᎾᎨᎢ | gvnagei | |||
| blue | ᏌᎪᏂᎨᎢ | sagonigei | |||
| brown | ᎤᏬᏗᎨ | uwodige | |||
| green | ᎢᏤᎢᏳᏍᏗ | itseiyusdi | |||
| gray | ᎤᏍᎪᎸ ᏌᎪᏂᎨ | usgolv sagonige | |||
| gold | ᏓᎶᏂᎨᎢ | dalonigei | |||
| orange | ᎠᏌᎶᏂᎨ | asalonige | |||
| pink | ᎩᎦᎨᎢᏳᏍᏗ | gigageiyusdi | |||
| purple | ᎩᎨᏍᏗ | gigesdi | |||
| red | ᎩᎦᎨ | gigage | |||
| silver | ᎠᏕᎸ ᎤᏁᎬ | adelv unegv | |||
| white | ᎤᏁᎦ | unega | |||
| yellow | ᏓᎶᏂᎨ | dalonige |
Word creation[]
The polysynthetic nature of the Cherokee tung enables the tung to develop new descriptive words in Cherokee to reflect or express new concepts. Some good forebisens are ᏗᏘᏲᎯᎯ ('ditiyohihi', "he argues repeatedly and on purpose with a purpose") matching with "attorney" and ᏗᏓᏂᏱᏍᎩ ('didaniyisgi', "the last catcher" or "he catches them finally and conclusively") for "policeman."[72]
Other words have been adopted from another tung such as the English word gasoline, which in Cherokee is ᎦᏐᎵᏁ ('gasoline'). Other words were adopted from the tungs of theeds who settled in Oklahoma in the early 1900s. One interesting and humorous byspel is the name of Nowata, Oklahoma deriving from nowata, a Delaware word for "welcome" (more precisely the Delaware word is nuwita which can mean "welcome" or "friend" in the Delaware tungs). The white settlers of the area noted the name nowata for the township, and local Cherokee, being unaware that the word had its origins in the Delaware tung, called the town ᎠᎹᏗᎧᏂᎬᎾᎬᎾ ('Amadikanigvnagvna') which means "the water is all gone gone from here" – i.e. "no water."[73]
Other forebisens of adopted words are ᎧᏫ ('kawi') for "coffee" and ᏩᏥ ('watsi') for "watch"; which led to ᎤᏔᎾ ᏩᏥ (utana watsi, "big watch") for clock.[73]
Meaning expansion can be illustrated by the words for "warm" and "cold", which can be also extended to mean "south" and "north". About the time of the Americkish Civil War, they were further extended to OR party labels, Democratic and Republican, respectively.[74]
Samples[]
From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
| Cherokee | Oversetting | Stavesetrow |
|---|---|---|
| Nigada aniyvwi nigeguda'lvna ale | All human beings are born free and | ᏂᎦᏓ ᎠᏂᏴᏫ ᏂᎨᎫᏓᎸᎾ ᎠᎴ |
| unihloyi unadehna duyukdv gesv'i. Gejinela | equal in dignity and rights. They are | ᎤᏂᎶᏱ ᎤᎾᏕᎿ ᏚᏳᎧᏛ ᎨᏒᎢ. ᎨᏥᏁᎳ |
| unadanvtehdi ale unohlisdi | endowed with reason and conscience | ᎤᎾᏓᏅᏖᏗ ᎠᎴ ᎤᏃᎵᏍᏗ |
| ale sagwu gesv junilvwisdanedi anahldinvdlv adanvdo gvhdi. | and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. | ᎠᎴ ᏌᏊ ᎨᏒ ᏧᏂᎸᏫᏍᏓᏁᏗ ᎠᎾᏟᏅᏢ ᎠᏓᏅᏙ ᎬᏗ. |
