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The Cherokee Syllabary

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.

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The Cherokee Syllabary

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  1. The Cherokee Syllabary Carrie Clarady University of Maryland Center for Advanced Study of Language

  2. Writing Systems • Three major categories • Logographic • Syllabic • Alphabetic/segmental • These categories are not firm and systems can change and evolve across these major categories

  3. 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

  4. 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

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. 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.

  8. 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

  9. 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/

  10. The Cherokee syllabary • The story of Sequoyah • 1809 – 1819 – active development • Script and language traveled west with the Cherokee

  11. The Cherokee syllabary • Structure – graphic, organization

  12. 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

  13. The Cherokee syllabary • Modern use in print and online • Mostly used for heritage and folklore purposes now

  14. Further resources • Cherokee.org • Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA) • Contact me: cclarady@casl.umd.edu

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