Cherokee language Totally Explained

Everything about Cherokee Language totally explained

Cherokee (ᏣᎳᎩ, Tsalagi) is an Iroquoian language spoken by the Cherokee people which uses a unique syllabary writing system. It is the only Southern Iroquoian language that remains spoken. Cherokee is polysynthetic and places an emphasis on syllables.
The Cherokee dialect spoken by the inhabitants of the Lower Towns in the vicinity of the South Carolina-Georgia border had r as the liquid consonant in its inventory where the contemporary Ani-kutani (ᎠᏂᎫᏔᏂ) dialect spoken in North Carolina and the Oklahoma dialects contain l. As such, the word "Cherokee" when spoken in the language is expressed as Tsa-la-gi (pronounced Jah-la-gee, or Cha-la-gee) by native speakers. The language also lacks p and b.

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. In the case of p, qu is often substituted (as in the name of Cherokee Wikipedia, Wi-gi-que-di-ya).

Consonants

The consonant inventory for North Carolina Cherokee is given in the table below. The consonants of all Iroquoian languages pattern so that they may be grouped as (oral) obstruents, sibilants, laryngeals, and resonants (Lounsbury 1978:337). Obstruents are non-distinctively aspirated when they precede h. There is some variation in how orthographies represent these allophones. The orthography used in the table represents the aspirated allophones as th, kh, and tsh. Another common orthography represents the unaspirated allophones as d, g, and dz and the aspirated allophones as t, k, and ts (Scancarelli 2005:359–62). North Carolina Cherokee consonants>

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Obstruents		t ts		k
Sibilant		s
Laryngeals					h ʔ
Resonants	m	n l	y	w

Vowels

There are six short vowels and six long vowels in the Cherokee inventory. As with all Iroquoian languages, this includes a nasalized vowel (Lounsbury 1978:337). In the case of Cherokee, the nasalized vowel is a schwa, which most orthographies represent as v.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i iː		u uː
Mid	e eː	v vː	o oː
Open		a aː

Diphthongs

Cherokee has only one diphthong native to the language:

ai /ai/

Another exception to the phonology above is the modern Oklahoma use of the loanword "automobile," with the /ɔ/ sound and /b/ sound of English.

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 doesn't 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.

Grammar

Cherokee, like many Native American languages, is polysynthetic, meaning that many morphemes may be linked together to form a single word, which may be of great length. Cherokee verbs, the most important word type, must contain as a minimum a pronominal prefix, a verb root, an aspect suffix, and a modal suffix. Consider the following verb:

ge:ga>

g- e: -g -a

PRONOMINAL PREFIX VERB ROOT "to go" ASPECT SUFFIX MODAL SUFFIX

For example, the verb form ge:ga, "I am going," has each of these elements. The pronominal prefix is g-, 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 -g-. 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.

Writing system

Cherokee is written in an 85-character syllabary invented by Sequoyah (also known as George Guess). Some symbols do resemble Latin alphabet letters, but with completely different sound values; Sequoyah had seen English writing, but didn't know how to read it.
   Due to the polysynthetic nature of the Cherokee language, new and descriptive words in Cherokee are easily constructed to reflect or express modern concepts. Some good examples are di-ti-yo-hi-hi (Cherokee:ᏗᏘᏲᎯᎯ) which means "he argues repeatedly and on purpose with a purpose". This is the Cherokee word for attorney. Another example is di-da-ni-yi-s-gi (Cherokee:ᏗᏓᏂᏱᏍᎩ) which means the final catcher or "he catches them finally and conclusively". This is the Cherokee word for policeman.
   Many words, however, have been adopted from the English language – for example, gasoline, which in Cherokee is ga-so-li-ne (Cherokee:ᎦᏐᎵᏁ). Many other words were adopted from the languages of tribes who settled in Oklahoma in the early 1900s. One interesting and humorous example is the name of Nowata, Oklahoma. The word "nowata" is a Delaware word for "welcome" (more precisely the Delaware word is "nu-wi-ta" which can mean "welcome" or "friend" in the Delaware language). The white settlers of the area used the name "nowata" for the township, and local Cherokees, being unaware the word had its origins in the Delaware language, called the town a-ma-di-ka-ni-gv-na-gv-na (Cherokee:ᎠᎹᏗᎧᏂᎬᎾᎬᎾ) which means "the water is all gone gone from here" -- for example "no water".
   Other examples of adopted words are ka-wi (Cherokee:ᎧᏫ) for coffee and wa-tsi (Cherokee:ᏩᏥ) for watch (which led to u-ta-na wa-tsi (Cherokee:ᎤᏔᎾ ᏩᏥ) or "big watch" for clock).

Language drift

There are two main dialects of Cherokee spoken by modern speakers. The Giduwa dialect (Eastern Band) and the Otali Dialect (also called the Overhill dialect) spoken in Oklahoma. The Otali dialect has drifted significantly from Sequoyah's Syllabary in the past 150 years, and many contracted and borrowed words have been adopted into the language. These noun and verb roots in Cherokee, however, can still be mapped to Sequoyah's Syllabary. In modern times, there are more than 85 syllables in use by modern Cherokee speakers. Modern Cherokee speakers who speak Otali employ 122 distinct syllables in Oklahoma.

Otali Syllable Sequoyah Syllabary Index Sequoyah Syllabary Char Sequoyah Syllable

nah 32 Ꮐ nah

hna 31 Ꮏ hna

qua 38 Ꮖ qua

que 39 Ꮗ que

qui 40 Ꮘ qui

quo 41 Ꮙ quo

quu 42 Ꮚ quu

quv 43 Ꮛ quv

dla 60 Ꮬ dla

tla 61 Ꮭ tla

tle 62 Ꮮ tle

tli 63 Ꮯ tli

tlo 64 Ꮰ tlo

tlu 65 Ꮱ tlu

tlv 66 Ꮲ tlv

tsa 67 Ꮳ tsa

tse 68 Ꮴ tse

tsi 69 Ꮵ tsi

tso 70 Ꮶ tso

tsu 71 Ꮷ tsu

tsv 72 Ꮸ tsv

hah 79 Ꮿ ya

gwu 11 Ꭻ gu

gwi 40 Ꮘ qui

hla 61 Ꮭ tla

hwa 73 Ꮹ wa

gwa 38 Ꮖ qua

hlv 66 Ꮲ tlv

guh 11 Ꭻ gu

gwe 39 Ꮗ que

wah 73 Ꮹ wa

hnv 37 Ꮕ nv

teh 54 Ꮦ te

qwa 06 Ꭶ ga

yah 79 Ꮿ ya

na 30 Ꮎ na

ne 33 Ꮑ ne

ni 34 Ꮒ ni

no 35 Ꮓ no

nu 36 Ꮔ nu

nv 37 Ꮕ nv

ga 06 Ꭶ ga

ka 07 Ꭷ ka

ge 08 Ꭸ ge

gi 09 Ꭹ gi

go 10 Ꭺ go

gu 11 Ꭻ gu

gv 12 Ꭼ gv

ha 13 Ꭽ ha

he 14 Ꭾ he

hi 15 Ꭿ hi

ho 16 Ꮀ ho

hu 17 Ꮁ hu

hv 18 Ꮂ hv

ma 25 Ꮉ ma

me 26 Ꮊ me

mi 27 Ꮋ mi

mo 28 Ꮌ mo

mu 29 Ꮍ mu

da 51 Ꮣ da

ta 52 Ꮤ ta

de 53 Ꮥ de

te 54 Ꮦ te

di 55 Ꮧ di

ti 56 Ꮨ ti

do 57 Ꮩ do

du 58 Ꮪ du

dv 59 Ꮫ dv

la 19 Ꮃ la

le 20 Ꮄ le

li 21 Ꮅ li

lo 22 Ꮆ lo

lu 23 Ꮇ lu

lv 24 Ꮈ lv

sa 44 Ꮜ sa

se 46 Ꮞ se

si 47 Ꮟ si

so 48 Ꮠ so

su 49 Ꮡ su

sv 50 Ꮢ sv

wa 73 Ꮹ wa

we 74 Ꮺ we

wi 75 Ꮻ wi

wo 76 Ꮼ wo

wu 77 Ꮽ wu

wv 78 Ꮾ wv

ya 79 Ꮿ ya

ye 80 Ᏸ ye

yi 81 Ᏹ yi

yo 82 Ᏺ yo

yu 83 Ᏻ yu

yv 84 Ᏼ yv

to 57 Ꮩ do

tu 58 Ꮪ du

ko 10 Ꭺ go

tv 59 Ꮫ dv

qa 73 Ꮹ wa

ke 07 Ꭷ ka

kv 12 Ꭼ gv

ah 00 Ꭰ a

qo 10 Ꭺ go

oh 03 Ꭳ o

ju 71 Ꮷ tsu

ji 69 Ꮵ tsi

ja 67 Ꮳ tsa

je 68 Ꮴ tse

jo 70 Ꮶ tso

jv 72 Ꮸ tsv

a 00 Ꭰ a

e 01 Ꭱ e

i 02 Ꭲ i

o 03 Ꭳ o

u 04 Ꭴ u

v 05 Ꭵ v

s 45 Ꮝ s

n 30 Ꮎ na

l 02 Ꭲ i

t 52 Ꮤ ta

d 55 Ꮧ di

y 80 Ᏸ ye

k 06 Ꭶ ga

g 06 Ꭶ ga

Internet usage

For years, many people wrote transliterated Cherokee on the Internet or used poorly intercompatible fonts to type out the syllabary. However, since the fairly recent addition of the Cherokee syllables to Unicode, the Cherokee language is experiencing a renaissance in its use on the Internet.

Cherokee language in popular culture

The theme song "I Will Find You" from the 1992 film The Last of the Mohicans by the band Clannad features Máire Brennan singing in Cherokee as well as Mohican.

Further Information

Get more info on 'Cherokee Language'.

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