A Look at the Cherokee Language
by Ben Frey*
Cherokee is a fascinating language.
The language is interesting because
it is so incredibly different from
European ones. Although many European
languages — French, Spanish, and Italian,
for example — relate in some way to each
other, Cherokee has no basic relationship
to these languages at all.
One of the things that is so different
about Cherokee is the way it forms sen¬
tences and expresses ideas. In English, for
example, we say sentences such as "I see a
bear." In this type of sentence, the subject,
I — the one doing the action — comes first.
family. Today, the Iroquois are a group of
six tribes living in the Great Lakes region
of the United States and Canada. Linguists
say that at some time, around 3,500 years
ago, the Cherokee people lived there as
well. For some reason, they moved south.
By the time the Spanish encountered the
Cherokee in the 1500s, the tribe was living
in parts of what are now North Carolina,
South Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia, West
Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama.
Firmly established in their new home, the
Cherokee represented the only group of
Southern Iroquoian speakers. When
Next, we tell what sort of action is happen- Europeans arrived, American Indian tribes
ing. In this sentence, we've used the verb
see. Finally, the last part of the sentence is
the part that receives the action of
the verb, the object: a bear. Many
European languages work in this
order — first the subject, then the
verb, and then the object. In
Cherokee, however, it is common to
say: Yo-nn tsi-go-ti-ha, or "A bear,
I see it." In Cherokee, the first
thing to be expressed is the
object! After the object comes
the subject, I, and then the
verb, see. Some elders claim
that this is because in
Cherokee, we focus first on
things outside of ourselves,
and only secondly on
ourselves and our
actions. Whatever the
reason, it is clear that
Cherokee differs fundamentally from
many other languages.
Although Cherokee is not related to
European languages, linguists (people who
study languages and how they work) have
observed that it does seem to be related to
some other American Indian languages.
Far from all being alike, American Indian
languages can be grouped into families, or
groups of languages that are related to
each other but not to other groups.
Cherokee is part of the Iroquoian language
in what is now North Carolina spoke lan¬
guages from three main groups: Southern
Iroquoian, Algonquian, and Siouan.
Today, about 22,000 people speak
Cherokee. Because of their ancestors'
removal from their homes in North
Carolina and other states in the late
1830s on the Trail of Tears, many of these
speakers now live in
Oklahoma. Before the
Trail of Tears, the lan¬
guage experienced a peri¬
od of great growth and
development. Through the
/
efforts of a man named
Sequoyah (1776-1843),
Cherokee began learning for
the first time to read and
Sequoyah invented the Cherokee syllabary in 1821, •. • ,1 • i
giving the tribe its own written language.
Л
syllabary Write
1П
tneiT own
ШП-
is a set of written characters, or symbols, each repre- gUclffC. SeClllOyah invCFlt-
senting a syllable of spoken language. , , 1 , ,
ed the Cherokee syl¬
labary in 1821. The syllabary divides up
the sounds of the language into eighty-five
symbols. Each symbol represents a single
syllable — most often one consonant and
one vowel. (Six symbols, however, repre¬
sent only vowels, and one represents only
a consonant, s.) In 1828, Cherokee began
using the syllabary to publish a newspa¬
per, the Cherokee Phoenix, which was dis¬
tributed throughout the Cherokee nation.
Unfortunately, the success of the lan¬
guage was not to last as long as it might
1 586: Ralph Lane leads an expe¬
dition into the interior ot the state
to seek gold and other precious
metals. The Roanoke warn inland
tribes about the colonists, but
Lane makes an alliance with the
Chowanoke, who hope to use the
English against their enemies, the
Tuscarora. Chief Wingina plots to
get rid of the settlers. Lane has
him killed, breaking an uneasy
peace.
Sir Francis Drake arrives at
Roanoke Island and takes most of
the colonists back to England. He
leaves an exploring party and
possibly Africans and South
American Indians captured from
the Spanish. A relief ship arrives
at Roanoke Island and, finding no
colonists, leaves fifteen men to
hold the area for England.
1587: Raleigh sends explorer and
artist John White to Roanoke
Island as leader of a new group of
settlers, in the second English try
at settling there. The colonists find
the bones of the men left behind
in 1586. White enlists the help of
Manteo to build relationships with
the Roanoke and Croatoan
Indians. Most of the Native peo¬
ples decide to let the colonists
fend for themselves.
White leaves Roanoke Island
for England to get supplies. With
England and Spain at war, he
cannot return right away.
1590: White finally returns to
Roanoke Island to find the colony
deserted, with little evidence of
what happened. He attempts to
sail to Croatoan Island in hopes
of finding some of the colonists,
but bad weather prevents him
from reaching the island, and he
never returns. The Roanoke set¬
tlement is known afterward as the
Lost Colony.
To see more of John White's draw¬
ings of early American Indians,
used to illustrate a book by Thomas
Hariot, access the collections of
Documenting the American South,
based at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Mill Libraries,
at http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/
hariot/illustr.html.
1608: In what is now Virginia,
Jamestown leader John Smith
sends expeditions to the Roanoke
Island area for information about
the Lost Colony. His men find
nothing conclusive.
1611: Because of their rivalry with
England, the Spanish government
develops an alliance with the
Tuscarora tribe to monitor the
Jamestown colony.
1650: White settlers begin to
move into Indian lands along the
coastal sounds and rivers
1653: Virginia legislator Francis
Yeardly hires fur trader Nathaniel
Batts to explore the Albemarle
Sound region for possible settle¬
ment. Yeardly agrees to buy land
from the Roanoke Indians but
dies before his settlement is
established. Batts settles along
the Chowan River in a building
that serves as his home and a
trading post. He trades with local
Indians and becomes the area’s
first permanent white settler.
'Ben Frey is a graduate research assistant in the Department of Cherokee Studies at
Western Carolina University. He is a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
TH/H, Fall 2005
