Cherokee Syllabary Surprises

The Cherokee syllabary was developed to create a written form of the Cherokee language, which until that point had been exclusively oral. Sequoyah, a Cherokee silversmith who was also known as George Guess or George Gist, developed the syllabary in the early 19th century, despite having no formal education or knowledge of other written languages. Sequoyah believed that the power and potential of the ’talking leaves’ (as he called written English) could provide significant benefits to the Cherokee people, and he saw literacy as a powerful tool that could help ensure the survival and prosperity of the Cherokee nation. He realized that written communication could serve a variety of functions, such as preserving history and culture, enhancing communication, promoting education, and facilitating the conduct of legal and business matters. He started by trying to create a character for each word in the Cherokee language but found this task too daunting. Instead, he opted for creating a character for each syllable. The Cherokee language is a polysynthetic language and the syllabary is made up of 85 characters representing syllables. Once it was introduced, the syllabary was rapidly adopted by the Cherokee people. It was used in the publication of the Cherokee Phoenix, the first newspaper published by Native Americans in the United States, and is still in use today. It played a crucial role in preserving and promoting Cherokee culture and language during a period of great upheaval and forced assimilation.