Cherokee syllabary

All you want to know about Cherokee syllabary

Cherokee
Type Syllabary
Spoken languages Cherokee language
Time period 1819-present
Parent systems none
 → Cherokee
ISO 15924 Cher
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.
This article contains Cherokee syllabic characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Cherokee syllabics.
Sequoyah

The Cherokee syllabary is a syllabary invented by Sequoyah to write the Cherokee language in 1819. His creation of the syllabary is particularly noteworthy in that he could not previously read any script. He first experimented with pictograms/ideograms, but his system later developed into a syllabary. In his system, each symbol represents a syllable rather than a single phoneme. While the large number of possible syllables in English (tens of thousands) precludes the use of a syllabary, the 85 characters in the Cherokee syllabary provide a suitable method to write Cherokee. Some symbols do resemble Latin alphabet letters, but the sounds are completely different (the form of the letter for /a/ resembles Latin D, for example). The order of the symbols in a chart and the very shapes of the symbols themselves were modified in the first few decades. This was due mainly to the influence of missionaries prior to 1828, who tried to assimilate the natives. However, the new writing system remained a key factor in maintaining the social boundaries and ethnic identities of the Cherokee population. During this time period, (around the 1820's), Cherokee literacy became an "international sensation," receiving more attention than any other Native American writing system has at any time. Since the year 1828, very little changes have been applied to the syllabary [1].

Contents

The Syllabary

Creation

Main article: Sequoyah
Example of characters from Sequoyah's syllabary.

Around 1809, impressed by the "talking leaves" of written language, Sequoyah began work to create a writing system for the Cherokee language. After first attempting to create a character for each word, Sequoyah decided to create characters for syllables. Although he strongly utilized the Roman alphabet and quite possibly the Cyrillic alphabet, his first characters looked like German text, but most were subsequently modified or dropped. Some of Sequoyah's ideas came from a so-called "Bible Book," which he studied for characters to make use of in print. His inspiration for borrowing Roman letters was a newspaper he found tossed on the side of the road by a traveler. He noticed the simplicity of the Roman letters and later adopted them with the intention of making the writing of his syllabary easier. The work took Sequoyah 12 years to complete. This invention is particularly remarkable due to its independent creation and very rapid dissemination. By 1824, most Cherokees could already read and write in their newly developed language[1].

Description

Each of the characters represents one syllable, such as in the Japanese and Linear B writing systems. The first six characters represent isolated vowel syllables. Characters for combined consonant and vowel syllables then follow. Literate Cherokees are very familiar with this chart, as English speakers are with the Roman alphabet. It is recited from left to right, top to bottom[1].

Note: ‘v’ represents a nasal vowel in this chart.

The phonetic values of these characters do not relate to those represented by English letters. Some characters represent two distinct phonetic values (actually heard as different syllables), while others often represent different forms of the same syllable [1]. Not all phonemic distinctions of the spoken language are represented. For example, while /d/+vowel syllables are mostly differentiated from /t/+vowel by use of different graphs, syllables beginning with /g/ are all conflated with those beginning with /k/. Also, long vowels are not ordinarily distinguished from short vowels, tones are not marked, and there is no regular rule for representing consonant clusters. However, in more recent technical literature, length of vowels can actually be indicated using a colon. Six distinctive vowel qualities are represented in the Cherokee syllabary based on where they are pronounced in the mouth, including the front vowels i and u, mid vowels e, v, and o, and low vowel a. The syllabary also does not distinguish among syllables that end in vowels, h, or glottal stop. For example, the single symbol, Ꮡ, is used to represent su in su:dali, meaning 'six' (ᏑᏓᎵ). This same symbol Ꮡ represents suh as in suhdi, meaning 'fishhook' (ᏑᏗ). Therefore, there is no differentiation among the symbols used for syllables ending in a single vowel versus that vowel plus "h." When consonants other than s, h, or glottal stop arise with other consonants in clusters, the appropriate consonant plus a "dummy vowel" is used. This dummy vowel is not pronounced and is either chosen arbitrarily or for etymological reasons (reflecting an underlying etymological vowel). For example, ᏧᎾᏍᏗ (tsu-na-s-di) represents the word ju:nsdi, meaning 'small.' Ns in this case is the consonant cluster that requires the following dummy vowel, a. Ns is written as ᎾᏍ /nas/. The vowel is included in the transliteration, but is not pronounced in the word (ju:nsdi). (The transliterated ts represents the affricate j). [2]

Later developments

As with some other writing systems (like Arabic), adult speakers can distinguish words by context. The syllabary achieved almost instantaneous popularity, and for decades was used in the Cherokee Phoenix, a Cherokee newspaper. It has been used since it was formed to write letters, keep diaries, and record medical formulas [2]. Although little new material is published in Cherokee, it is still used today to transcribe recipes, religious lore, folktales, etc. Knowledge of the syllabary is considered necessary for full Cherokee citizenship. According to evidence as of 1980, the (Western) Cherokee language is still spoken both formally and informally by around 10,000 people. The language remains strong, as the number of speakers has been continuing to increase since 1930 [3].

There have been programs to teach the Cherokee language in schools, but this has been done with the Latin alphabet, not the syllabary. Anything written in the syllabary, however, is seen as more authentically Cherokee (Bender 2002, 2008). The most common setting for use of the syllabary is in churches.

Possible influence on Liberian Vai syllabary

In recent years, startling evidence has emerged suggesting that the Cherokee syllabary provided a model for the design of the Vai syllabary in Liberia, Africa. The Vai syllabary is the earliest form of writing devised in western Africa, which emerged about 1832/33. The link appears to have been Cherokee who emigrated to Liberia after the invention of the Cherokee syllabary (which in its early years spread like wildfire among the Cherokee) but before the invention of the Vai syllabary. One such man, Cherokee Austin Curtis, married into a prominent Vai family and became an important Vai chief himself. It is perhaps not coincidence that the "inscription on a house" that drew the world's attention to the existence of the Vai script was in fact on the home of Curtis, a Cherokee (Tuchscherer 2002). There also appears to be a connection between an early form of written Bassa, with the earlier Cherokee syllabary.

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 Touzet's atypical.net, and the shareware fonts Code2000 and Everson Mono.


This article is currently or was the subject of an 2008 fall semester educational assignment. Further details are available here.

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References

  • Bender, Margaret. 2002. Signs of Cherokee Culture: Sequoyah's Syllabary in Eastern Cherokee Life. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
  • Bender, Margaret. 2008. Indexicality, voice, and context in the distribution of Cherokee scripts. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 192:91-104.
  • Daniels, Peter T; William Bright. 1996. The World's Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press. pp.587-592.
  • Foley, Lawrence. Phonological Variation in Western Cherokee. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1980.
  • Scancarelli, Janine. 2005. "Cherokee." Native Languages of the Southeastern United States. Edited by Heather K Hardy and Janine Scancarelli, 351-384.Bloomington: Nebraska Press.
  • Tuchscherer, Konrad. 2002 (with P.E.H. Hair). "Cherokee and West Africa: Examining the Origins of the Vai Script," History in Africa, 29, pp. 427-486.
  • Walker, Willard and James Sarbaugh. 1993. The Early History of the Cherokee Syllabary. Ethnohistory 40.1: 70-94.
  1. ^ a b c d Walker and Sarbaugh 1993
  2. ^ a b Scancarelli 2005
  3. ^ Foley 1980

Further reading

  • Cherokee Language and Culture (Firm). ([200-]). Cherokee syllabary. Tulsa, OK: Cherokee Language and Culture.
  • Cowan, A. (1981). Cherokee syllabary primer. Park Hill, OK: Cross-Cultural Education Center.

External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_syllabary"

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