Sequoyah and the Invention of the Cherokee Alphabet （2012）

Writing Systems for Taiwan Indigenous Languages （原住民族語言書寫系統） are announced officially in 2005 by Council of Indigenous Peoples and Ministry of Education. These symbols are developed by linguists, indigenous language experts/teachers and authorities based on Roman letters, though it must not be ignored that both Mandarin phonetic symbols and Japanese scripts were once candidates promoted by different forces at different times.

Sometime during the early decades of 1800 (circa 1809), a man remembered by Washington Post in 1899 as 'Cadmus of Cherokees' (Note: In Greek mythology, Cadmus was the founder of Thebes and the creator of Phoenician alphabets) single-handedly created a writing system  for his native language.

With the help of his six- to ten- year old daughter Ahyokeh, who was his best pupil and assistant, he completed the syllabary in 1821 and convinced the Cherokee Council as well as his people by demonstration of the truth of his invention.

This man was Sequoyah or George Guess (Gist). According to a Cherokee writer and a self-claimed descendant of Sequoyah in 1971, Traveller Bird, the name Sequoyah was Sogwili in Taliwa and it meant 'horse' (Sequoyah and the Invention, p. 78).

The Sequoyah syllabary is a set of 85 pictorial symbols that represent each syllable of a Cherokee word; that is, except for six vowels (a, e, i, o, u, v), each symbol represents the combination of a consonant and a vowel (CV). Here is a clip on the sound of each symbol: Cherokee Syllabary & Flash Cards.

At first, Sequoyah intended to create logogram for each sound he heard in the Cherokee language but soon realized the task too insurmountable to be done and the collection too large to be useful.

After several attempts at different methods, he found many syllables were repeated in different words and "had the idea to divide Cherokee words into syllables and assign a symbol for each of them"(Sequoyah and the Invention, p. 29). This became workable. His daughter Ahyokeh helped him reduce the symbols from 115-200 down to 86; and the first newspaper published by Native Americans, the Cherokee Phoenix, cut the syllabary down to 85 in print (Sequoyah and the Invention, p. 61).

For example,

"E" is read 'gv' (CV) in Cherokee;

This capital "I" with a flying hand on the right side is read 'ge' (CV) in Cherokee;

This capital "G" with a curve at the top is read 'yu' (CV) in Cherokee.



With three symbols/sounds put together, 'gvgeyu' means "I love you" in Cherokee.

After the initial approval by the Cherokee Council, Sequoyah's syllabary swept the nation like a  fire.

He himself was devoted to spreading the writing system far and wide, "viewing the syllabary as a way to preserve traditions and protect knowledge from outsiders" (Sequoyah and the Invention, p. 60). He even dreamed of revising this writing system for the use of all Native American peoples on the continent, though was forced to abandon the idea. Eventually, he died during such a gospel-spreading journey in Mexico at eightyish in 1843.

The fire burned elsewhere without the man. Newspapers such as Cherokee Phoenix (first printing in 1828) and Cherokee Advocate (first issue in 1844) came out in bilingual versions; The Missionary Herald published the first five verses of the Book of Genesis  in the Cherokee syllabary in 1827; and there was a Cherokee version of the "Cherokee Constitution" in 1827.

Everyone learned the syllabary for different purposes; "Medicine men used the syllabary to record their formulas, Christian Cherokee used it to translate the Bible, hymns, and other spiritual writings, and storytellers used it to record the Cherokee cosmology and history" (Sequoyah and the Invention, p. 61).

The legacy of Sequoyah reaches far beyond the Cherokee Nation.

Possible connections have been built between the Vai syllabary in Liberia Africa and the Cree writing system developed by Missionary James Evans in 1830s (Sequoyah and the Invention, p. 84).

Scholars also argue that since it is a writing system created by a man for his own people, the fact somehow creates opposite forces in its development. It becomes both empowering and excluding as some  used the syllabary to assert the 'level of civilization' of indigenous cultures as being equal to non-indigenous cultures with writing systems and others used it to shield indigenous cultures from any foreign influence. While the first group was bridging the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous cultures, the second was distancing the two from each other.

In the words of Margaret Bender, who lived with the Cherokee from 1992 to 1995,

"The syllabary thus stands in a pivotal position--between the reinforcement of a hierarchy and its dismantling; between self-definition and external categorization; between independence and nationalism on the one hand and assimilation on the other..." (Sequoyah and the Invention, p. 61)


Regardless,

"The people's laguage cannot perish-nay,
...
The last memorial- the last fragment
Of tribes,- some scholar learned shall pore
Upon thy letters, seeking ancient lore...

                     (Alexander Posey, "Ode to Seqoyah")


This wonderfully readable and highly informative biography of Sequoyah and the Cherokee Nation is written by April R. Summitt, published by ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2012. Five likes for it!!

Oh, Sequoyah will also be the story ILRDC will publish in sixteen indigenous languages in 2016 (though in an abridged and revised form). How appropriate to review the history of a Native American writing system with Taiwan indigenous languages. There can be no better exchange such as this!