Cherokee language

Cherokee (Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩ Tsalagi) is an Iroquoian language spoken by the Cherokee people. It is the only Southern Iroquoian language that remains spoken.

Phonology

Cherokee only has one labial consonant, /m/, which is relatively new to the language, unless one counts the Cherokee w a labial instead of a velar.

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop		t		k	ʔ
Affricate		ʦ
Fricative		s			h
Nasal	m	n
Approximant			j	ɰ
Lateral		l

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e	ə̃	o
Open		a

Diphthongs

Cherokee has only one diphthong native to the language:

• ai  /ai/

An exception is the modern Oklahoma use of the loanword "automobile," with the /aw/ sound and /b/ sound of English.

Grammar

Cherokee, (or Tsalagi, its name in its own language) like most Native American languages, is polysynthetic. As in the case of German or Latin, units of meaning, called morphemes, are linked together and occasionally form very long words. Cherokee verbs, constituting the most important word type, must contain as a minimum a pronominal prefix, a verb root, an aspect suffix, and a modal suffix. For example, the verb form ke:ka, "I am going," has each of these elements. The pronominal prefix is k-, which indicates first person singular. The verb root is -e, "to go." The aspect suffix that this verb employs for the present-tense stem is -k-. The present-tense modal suffix for regular verbs in Cherokee is -a. Verbs can also have prepronominal prefixes, reflexive prefixes, and derivative suffixes. Given all possible combinations of affixes, each regular verb can have 21,262 inflected forms.

Cherokee Syllabary

Sequoyah

Cherokee is written in a syllabary invented by Sequoyah (also known as George Guess). In his system, each symbol represents a syllable rather than a single phoneme. While the number of syllables in English (tens of thousands) defies 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). Sequoyah had seen English writing, but didn't know how to write it; in all known cases where a person invented a script after seeing phonetic writing, but without knowing how to write, the results have been syllabaries.

Some of the Latin transcriptions are approximate. For example, Tsalagi is transcribed into English as "Cherokee", because the Cherokee ts, l, and g actually more closely resemble Korean ᄌ, ᄅ, and ᄀ rather than the sounds suggested by the Romanization.

File:Cherokee Syllabary.png
Note: ‘v’ is a nasalized vowel in this chart.

Tone

Cherokee has a robust tonal system in which tones may be combined in various ways, following subtle and complex tonal rules that vary from community to community. While the tonal system is undergoing a gradual simplification in many areas (no doubt as part of Cherokee's often falling victim to second-language status), the tonal system remains extremely important in meaning and is still held strongly by many, especially older speakers. It should be noted that the syllabary does not normally display tone, and that real meaning discrepancies are rare within the native-language Cherokee-speaking community. The same goes for transliterated Cherokee ("osiyo," "dohitsu," etc.), which is rarely written with any tone markers, except in dictionaries. Native speakers can tell the difference between tone-distinguished words by context.

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. Cherokee is also supported by free fonts found at languagegeek.com, and the shareware fonts Code2000 and Everson Mono.

• languagegeek.com fonts
• Everson Mono

References

• Pulte, William, and Durbin Feeling. 2001. Cherokee. In: Garry, Jane, and Carl Rubino (eds.) Facts About the World's Languages: An Encyclopedia of the World's Major Languages: Past and Present. New York: H. W. Wilson. (Viewed at the Rosetta Project)
• Scancarelli, Janine. "Cherokee Writing." The World's Writing Systems. 1998: Section 53. (Viewed at the Rosetta Project)

See also

• Cherokee (people)
• Iroquoian languages
• Native American Languages
• Syllabary

External links

• The Cherokee Language
• Cherokee (Tsalagi) Lexicon
• Cherokee Language & Resources
• Cherokee.org Dikanesdi (Lexicon)
• Tone and Pitch Accent in Cherokee Nouns (pdf)
• Echota Tsalagi Language Project
• Exploration of the Red River of Louisiana, in the year 1852 / by Randolph B. Marcy ; assisted by George B. McClellan. hosted by the Portal to Texas History. See Appendix H, which compares the English, Comanche, and Wichita languages.
• Unicode Chart
• Offical Cherokee Font