The Cherokee Syllabary Carrie Clarady University of Maryland Center for Advanced Study of Language
Writing Systems Three major categories Logographic Syllabic Alphabetic/segmental These categories are not firm and systems can change and evolve across these major categories
Writing Systems Logographic/Ideographic Oldest forms of writing Not a pure system – usually has some kind of phonetic or sound information bound up in the characters Can extend through the “rebus” principle – use homophony of parts to construct new representations
Writing Systems Alphabetic 1 character = 1 sound – sort of Abjads – no vowels Abugidas – inherent vowels Easily adaptable for use in other languages and also for new coinages and loanwords
Writing Systems Syllabaries Each syllable has its own unique symbol Best suited for languages with very simple syllable structures Almost always CV, and almost always used for CV languages
Writing Systems Languages and their writing systems are not the same thing! But that doesn’t mean they aren’t related to each other, either
Languages in the Americas Pre-European – thousands of languages and hundreds of language families Extinction rates – maybe half left in N. America Continued preservation efforts It is estimated that only twenty N. American indigenous languages will remain viable by the year 2050.
Cherokee One of around 300 languages native to North America Part of the Iroquoian family of languages Polysynthetic – each word has a lot of parts ‘Cherokee’ – eastern band. More common is ‘Tsalagi’, from the west
The sound system of Cherokee Small phonemic inventory 12 consonants 6 vowels – long and short variants, including schwa Tone is distinctive Syllable structure – open syllables, CV overwhelmingly common, extrasyllabic /s/
The Cherokee syllabary The story of Sequoyah 1809 – 1819 – active development Script and language traveled west with the Cherokee
The Cherokee syllabary Structure – graphic, organization
The Cherokee syllabary Code talkers – World War II Mostly Cree and Comanche, but some evidence of Cherokee used in the same way Vai syllabary - Liberia
The Cherokee syllabary Modern use in print and online Mostly used for heritage and folklore purposes now
Further resources Cherokee.org Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA) Contact me: