Authors: michael conrad

ᎦᏬᏂᏍᎬᎢ ᎠᎦᏔᎲᎢ (Grammar)

☞ ᎦᏬᏂᏍᎬᎢ ᎠᎦᏔᎲᎢ - “His ongoing speaking - his ongoing knowing how.”

Clitics

☞ Don’t get hung up on grammar information. Grammar is not something that needs to be memorized or fully understood. It is through the exercises in the lesson material that you will learn how to understand and speak Cherokee, not by memorizing rules and word parts.

Clitics are special word endings that are used to add or change the meanings of existing words. They are a very powerful feature of the Cherokee language and allow you to express a great many complicated things in short order. It is important to note that these endings cannot be used alone. They must always be combined with an existing word to form a new word.

ᏘᎪᎵᏯ (Read them)

Review the following vocabulary then do the exercises.

• ᎠᏴ, ᎠᏯ
  [ạ²yv, ạ²ya] “I. We.”

• ᎥᏍᎩᎾ
  [v¹sgị²na] “He. She. They. That. Those.”

  • ᎥᏍᎩ
    [v¹sgị] - Alternate pronunciation.

  • ᏍᎩᎾ
    [sgị²na] - Alternate pronunciation.

  • ᎾᏍᎩ
    [na¹sgi] - Alternate pronunciation.

☞ Remember that if you are having problems recognizing any of the Syllabary you should do the final Syllabary exercise as a refresher.

ᏘᎪᎵᏯ (Read them)

Review the following vocabulary then do the exercises.

☞ Remember that if you are having problems recognizing any of the Syllabary you should do the final Syllabary exercise as a refresher.

ᏘᎪᎵᏯ (Read them)

☞ Reminder: Whenever you see “he” you can usually substitute “she”.

Review the following vocabulary then do the exercises.

☞ Remember that if you are having problems recognizing any of the Syllabary you should do the final Syllabary exercise as a refresher.

ᏘᎪᎵᏯ (Read them)

Review the following vocabulary then do the exercises.

☞ Reminder: Animacy refers to whether a thing is alive or not. Most alive things are considered animate. Most non-living things are considered inanimate.

☞ Remember that if you are having problems recognizing any of the Syllabary you should do the final Syllabary exercise as a refresher.

ᏘᎪᎵᏯ (Read them)

Review the following vocabulary then do the exercises. Take your time and work through the pronunciation guide for each word.

The Syllabary

The Cherokee syllabary was invented by a single individual named Sequoyah (ᏍᏏᏉᏯ) to write the Cherokee language in 1819. He is credited as the only known person in history to create an alphabet from scratch without knowing how to read or write.

Around 1809, impressed by the “talking leaves” of European written languages, Sequoyah began work to create a writing system for the Cherokee language. After attempting to create a character for each word, Sequoyah realized this would be too difficult and eventually created characters to represent syllables… He worked on the syllabary for twelve years before completion… The rapid dissemination of the syllabary is notable, and by 1824, most Cherokees could read and write in the newly developed writing system.

In 1828, the ordering of the Syllabary and each letter’s shape were modified by Cherokee author and editor Elias Boudinot to adapt the Syllabary to the printing press… for the creation of the “Cherokee Phoenix (ᏣᎳᎩ ᏧᎴᎯᏌᏅᎯ)”, the first newspaper published in a Native American language… A digitized, searchable version of the paper is available through the University of Georgia Libraries and the Digital Library of Georgia.

Pronunciation

Vowel Sounds

Cherokee has six main vowels. They are “a”, “e”, “i”, “o”, “u”, and “v”.

They are generally pronounced as follows:

• a: as (a) in father.

• e: as (a) in cake. Some speakers shift this letter to sound more like the “e” in “echo”.

• i: as (e) in Pete. Some speakers shift this letter to sound more like the “i” in “pit”.

• o: as (o) in hello.

• u: as (u) in tuba.

• v: as (u) in rung and is always nasalized (sounded through the nose).