The Cherokee language is the only Southern Iroquoian language still spoken in the US. Sequoyah invented the Cherokee written language syllabary in the early 19th century. The language is polysynthetic and has two surviving dialects. Efforts are being made to preserve the language.
The Cherokee language is the only Southern Iroquoian language still spoken in the United States. Although this colorful language of the Cherokee people, or Tsalagi, has been spoken for thousands of years, its written syllabary was invented in the early 19th century. Like many Iroquoian languages, the Cherokee language is polysynthetic, meaning that words are made up of many morphemes and can be very long.
In 1821, a Cherokee named Sequoyah began work on a Cherokee written language syllabary. Although he could not read or write English, he created a primer based on the English alphabet. By the time he finished 12 years later, he had established the Cherokee language as the only Native American language with an English-based written alphabet.
The Cherokee syllabary contains approximately 85 characters. Each letter represents an entire syllable. There are six vowels, including all the familiar English vowels, but with the addition of a “v” which is pronounced like “u” as in “but”, only with a nasalized quality. There are also many characters that represent a combination of vowels and consonants.
Two dialects of the Cherokee language survive. A third, the Eastern or lower dialect, is now extinct. The remaining two dialects developed separately from each other after the US government forcibly moved the Cherokee Nation from Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama in the 1830s to Oklahoma. Some Overhill Cherokee resisted relocation and went into hiding in Tennessee and northern Georgia, publicly adopting the lifestyle and customs of the European settlers. In private, they continued to speak their language and practice traditional customs.
The Middle dialect, or Kituwah, is spoken on the Qualla border of North Carolina and has been the least influenced by other languages. The Western, or Overhill, dialect is spoken by the Cherokee in Oklahoma and some isolated areas of Tennessee and has undergone some changes and additions from the Sequoya syllabary.
Another blow to the survival of the Cherokee language came in 1879 when the first Indian boarding schools opened. Young Native American children were driven from their homes, forced to wear European-style clothing and speak only English in an effort to assimilate them into European-American culture. Mainstreaming efforts continued for the next 50 years.
Several groups are trying to preserve the Cherokee language. The Cherokee Preservation Foundation offers Cherokee-only language classrooms where Cherokee children are immersed in the language every day. Online classes and podcasts were developed by the Kituwah Preservation and Education Program to make sure the language is recorded for generations to come.
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