For those who would like to learn Cherokee
- http://www.powersource.com/cocinc/language/ - syllabary, lessons, and there’s a lot of information on Cherokee culture on the website!
- http://www.cherokee.org/AboutTheNation/Wordlist.aspx - word translator
- http://www.angelfire.com/nj/nativecrafts/language.html - basic lessons
- http://www.cherokeelessons.com/?q=unilang - lessons, discussion boards, and exercises
- http://www.native-languages.org/cherokee_words.htm - a bit of vocabulary
- http://www.cherokee.org/Extras/Downloads/syllabary.html - syllabary with audio
- http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cherokee - wikibook
- http://www.manataka.org/page123.html - vocabulary
- http://www.cherokee.org/AboutTheNation/Kid’sArea/TraditionalStories/Default.aspx - some cherokee stories (in English)
Cherokee Nation Joins International Language Consortium
indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comThe Cherokee Nation has joined the Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit formed in 1987 to set international software standards, to help promote growth in use of the Cherokee language.
“Our program [the Cherokee Nation Language Technology Program] focuses on getting all kinds of technology to support the Cherokee language. So, we’ve done work with Apple to get Cherokee on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, and we’ve worked with Facebook to get some of the localization of that into the syllabary. We’ve worked with Google doing the same thing,” said Roy Boney Jr., a language technologist with the Cherokee Nation.
“When Windows 8 comes out next year, it’ll have a keyboard and font standard on all Windows 8 machines as well,” said Boney’s co-worker and fellow language technologist, Joseph Erb. “We work with major companies to make sure that when a product comes out our language has access to it.”
Boney said having representation in the international community through Unicode is very important.
“With every computer system in the world…there’s a language standard that they all follow, and that’s set by the Unicode Consortium. What they do is they take every written character in every language that they support and they assign it a unique code number. So a computer knows if somebody’s using Chinese, Japanese, Arabic or whatever it is, and Cherokee has been assigned numbers in that system, too. Basically the Unicode group governs what technology supports which language,” said Boney in a release. “We’re the only tribal nation that’s represented in the group. It’s a pretty great distinction for the Cherokee Nation to be represented.”
The Cherokee Nation expects its involvement to have a lasting impact on the Cherokee Language.
“Everybody that uses a computer uses Unicode,” said Erb. “Cherokee is going to be on every major computer device. In every society throughout history, the ones that survive have the best technology, and the ones that have weaker technology usually get swept up and disappear. We don’t want to disappear. We want to make sure that Cherokee is a vibrant culture, a strong culture. We want to make sure that our language is strong and this gives us the ability to access our language and communicate as the rest of the world does. This gives us the ability to unite our people with social media and with e-mail so that our next generation of Cherokees can communicate together in the language. It will actually tie our people back together with the language.”
Some Cherokee phrases from the online class!
My name is __________. = __________ da-quo-do-a.
I speak Cherokee. = Tsa-la-gi (cherokee) tsi-wo-ni (I speak).
I live in _____________. = __________ tsi-ne-la.
Where is your home? = Ha-tlv (where) di-tse-nv-sv (your home).
v = “uh” sound. FYI.
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There are really great classes and you can still sign up for the pre-recorded (archived) classes to watch at your convenience!
http://www.cherokee.org/AboutTheNation/Culture/Language/31863/Information.aspx
Conversations with Strangers...
I’ve recently began studying Cherokee seriously and already I’ve had two very strange, somewhat hilarious conversations with strangers while I was studying. Yesterday, I was in a waiting room and decided to review the Syllabary chart. I started muttering the sounds under my breath and was interrupted by a woman sitting to the right of me. She asked me if I was Japanese. Confused, I answered no. I’ve been mistaken for different things before but this was a first. I asked her why and she told me that she thought I was studying Japanese.
For easy reference, I’ve included a picture of the syllabary below.
The second strange conversation I had happened today. I was using flashcards to review parts of the body. I think I was on ᎧᏃᎨᏂ. Anyway, a young blonde woman started staring at my ipod with the flashcards and she kept leaning closer and closer until I got really annoyed. She then asked, “Is that Elvish?” I scooted away and side-eyed her something fierce. Elvish? Really? Elvish? I mean, Japanese was bad enough but Elvish? Anyway, I said no and she asked again what it was. I wasn’t really in the best mood so I just told her that it was my native language. She responded by saying, “But that’s not Spanish.”
This really happened…twice in the span of one week. *sigh*
Here is a sample of quenya which is a elvish language developed by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Here is also a small sample of Japanese text for a helpful comparison:
これは例です。
Can you honestly tell me that the words “ᏣᎳᎩ” or “ᎧᏃᎨᏂ” look anything like either of the languages above?
Yay! Google Now Supports Cherokee Language
Finally, some corporate effort to preserve the legacy of an astoundingly beautiful culture.
(Via Mashable) “In an attempt to preserve the endangered Cherokee language, Google has added it as an interface option.
The addition, announced today, means Cherokee speakers can now make it their default language for searches, and help keep the language alive. Google also introduced an on-screen keyboard option. In practice, this means anyone who can read and write Cherokee can look up anything on Google. Users can change their language setting to Cherokee here.
Cherokee, an Iroquoian language, did not have a written form until the early 19th century, when it got a syllabary (a set of written symbols to represent syllables) writing system. The Cherokee Nation has about 300,000 members, though only about 20,000 people speak the Cherokee language.
“I believe that efforts like those of Google are essential to keeping our language alive,” Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chad Smith said in a statement. “We have been working hard to get our young people interested in learning our Native tongue, but we cannot be successful unless they can read and write in the medium of their era -– all the digital devices that are currently so popular.”
With this latest addition, Google now supports 146 interface languages and encourages users to sign up forGoogle in Your Language to make a case for interfaces in other endangered languages.
Google made similar additions of other North American native languages Maya and Nahuatl last year.”
Cherokee Syllabary by ᏣᏉᏯ
I like the fact that people thought Sequoyah, the inventor of the Cherokee Alphabet, was practicing witchcraft as he was creating the symbols for the 86 sounds in the language. It took him twelve years and twice he started over. ( once because someone burned his cabin down… ) yea. for real. In February of 1828, the Cherokee Phoenix became the first newspaper printed in an indigenous american language and is still used today to teach and preserve the Cherokee language.
