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Number of speakers Cherokee is classified as Critically Endangered by UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. Cherokee or Tsalagi (Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩ ᎦᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ, romanized: Tsalagi Gawonihisdi, IPA: [dʒalaˈɡî ɡawónihisˈdî]) is an endangered-to-moribund [a] Iroquoian language [4] and the native language of the Cherokee people.
The Cherokee syllabary is a syllabary invented by Sequoyah in the late 1810s and early 1820s to write the Cherokee language.His creation of the syllabary is particularly noteworthy as he was illiterate until its creation. [3]
Within a quarter-century, the Cherokee Nation had reached a literacy rate of almost 100%, surpassing that of surrounding European-American settlers. [4] Sequoyah's creation of the Cherokee syllabary is among the few times in recorded history that an individual member of a pre-literate group created an original, effective writing system. It is ...
TIL Sequoyah, an illiterate warrior of the Cherokee Nation, observed the "talking leaves" (writing) of the white man in 1813. ... It caught on quickly and Cherokee literacy surpassed 90% just 9 ...
By 1825, the Bible and numerous religious hymns and pamphlets, educational materials, legal documents and books were translated into the Cherokee language. Thousands of Cherokee became literate and the literacy rate for Cherokee in the syllabary was higher than that of whites in the English alphabet.
Initially, his innovation was opposed by both Cherokee traditionalists and white missionaries, who sought to encourage the use of English. When Sequoyah taught children to read and write with the syllabary, he reached the adults. By the 1820s, the Cherokee had a higher rate of literacy than the whites around them in Georgia.
Worcester believed the newspaper could be a tool for Cherokee literacy, and a means to draw the loose Cherokee community together; it would help promote a more unified Cherokee Nation. He wrote a prospectus for the paper that promised to publish laws and documents of the Cherokee Nation, articles on Cherokee manners and customs, as well as ...
He never learned how to read or write in the Cherokee language as a child, only speak. [3] An older college classmate from Tennessee taught him Cherokee literacy. [3] When he returned home from college he initially settled into farming. [3] In 1887, ethnographer James Mooney hired Long to be his scribe and interpreter. [3]