"Syllabeary"
– one of the 30 bears in the Cherokee, North Carolina Bear Collection is
dedicated to Sequoyah
Whenever we linguists analyze a language with its reading
and writing system, we usually do so in the context of an evolution. An
evolution that took place over hundreds or thousands of years resulting in the
languages and their written representations that we know in their current
forms.
For example, the oldest writing system in the world still in
use today - Chinese - is said to be more than 4000 years old. It is also the
oldest known recorded language that was written on bones and shells of turtles.
Not all writing systems come close to such an advanced age, but there is still
so much to be considered when not only analyzing, but also learning a foreign
language. We try to get to know some of the history, events, inventions,
foreign influence that shaped not only modern day vocabulary, but also resulted
in the way we spell words today. It helps us remember better, learn faster and
understand at least some of the logic behind a given language system.
Now imagine something almost unimaginable. A person who
cannot read or write in any language actually developing a written
representation of a spoken language. As improbable as it sounds, it did happen
and not that long ago, by historical standards. It was only in 1825 that the
Cherokee Nation adopted a complete and effective writing and reading system
developed by one of their tribe members. His name was Sequoyah and he was a
Cherokee silversmith.
As a silversmith, Sequoyah
had contacts with white settlers in his area. He became very much intrigued by
the writing that those people used and he referred to it as "talking
leaves." His fascination led to an idea, and it was around 1809 that he
began working on a writing system for the Cherokee language. Initially, Sequoyah
could not find adults willing to learn this new writing system, so he taught
his daughter. He then traveled to Arkansas where some of the Cherokee tribe
members had settled and started working on convincing them that the system in
fact worked. He conducted numerous
demonstrations which involved asking individuals to say a word that he would
write down and then calling his daughter to read those words back. This
convincing took a several months, but eventually he succeeded in convincing the
western Cherokee that he had created an effective reading and writing system
that really worked. Sequoyah then
returned east with an envelope with a speech by one of the Arkansas Cherokee
leaders. He read that speech to the eastern Cherokees which was enough to
convince them to also learn the system. So, as we said earlier in this post, it
was in 1825 that the Cherokee Nation officially adopted Sequoyah's system. This was the first and only time in recorded
history that a person belonging to a non-literate people created an effective
writing system independently. Below is an image of a chart with the Cherokee syllabary.
***Contributed by Gosia. Check out her popular blog at http://planetgosia.blogspot.com
