Transcript Presentation on Cherokee by Carrie Clarady

The Cherokee Syllabary
Carrie Clarady
University of Maryland
Center for Advanced Study of Language
Writing Systems
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Three major categories
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Logographic
Syllabic
Alphabetic/segmental
These categories are not firm and
systems can change and evolve
across these major categories
Writing Systems
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Logographic/Ideographic
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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
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Alphabetic
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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
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Syllabaries
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Small phonemic inventory
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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
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The story of Sequoyah
1809 – 1819 – active development
Script and language traveled west
with the
Cherokee
The Cherokee syllabary
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Structure – graphic, organization
The Cherokee syllabary
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Code talkers – World War II
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Mostly Cree and Comanche, but some
evidence of Cherokee used in the same
way
Vai syllabary - Liberia
The Cherokee syllabary
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Modern use in print and online
Mostly used
for heritage
and folklore
purposes now
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Further resources
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Cherokee.org
Society for the Study of the
Indigenous Languages of the
Americas (SSILA)
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Contact me: [email protected]
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