Cherokees Keep Up With the Latest in Tech and Keep Their Language Alive

For generations, the Cherokee Nation has turned to tech to preserve its language with innovative efforts that have come via the Cherokee Phoenix, iPhone and Facebook.

"Talking Leaves to Pixels" by artist Roy Boney (Cherokee) illustrates the ingenuity of the Cherokees, from the time of Sequoyah to the era of the iPad

Courtesy of Roy Boney

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When my daughters and I swap emails on our phones, my messages end with the standard Apple iPhone signature, “Sent from my iPhone.” The version of the signature on my phone however: ᏂᏓᎴᏅᏓ ᎠᏌᎹᏗ ᏗᏟᏃᎮᏗ.

It looks a bit different from the default signature installed by Apple because it’s in Cherokee, one of more than 50 languages—and the first Native American one—installed on the iPhone out of the box.

Computer and mobile device users can now use the Cherokees’ syllabary to send texts and emails, query Google or post to Facebook.

The syllabary, now two centuries old, was the first written version of a Native American language developed by one man—Cherokee blacksmith Sequoyah—and since his creation of the written system, there have been a series of additional firsts for the language—like first Native American language to be printed in a bilingual newspaper, the first to be integrated into iPhones and iPads, and the first to be an option in Google’s search engine. 

The announcement this summer that the syllabary had been converted to braille suggests the Cherokee Nation is sure to continue prioritizing innovation as a means for preservation. All of this bodes well for the future of the language, says Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Bill John Baker.  

“Statistics show that half of the world’s 6,000 languages are endangered and will be lost by the next century if nothing is done to preserve them,” Baker says. “That will not be the fate of the Cherokee language, thanks to the hard work and collaboration between our tribal government and technology providers like Microsoft, Apple and Google.”

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A computer keyboard incorporates the Cherokee syllabary. By (http://bit.ly/1lz1pvH)

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During the Creek Wars of the early 19^th century, Sequoyah observed the white soldiers from Andrew Jackson’s Army writing letters home and chronicling their experiences by putting quill to paper. When he returned to his cabin in the Tennessee hills, Sequoyah spent the next 12 years developing a writing system that included more than 80 symbols representing the syllables that make up the Cherokee language.

When he and his daughter Ayoka unveiled his syllabary, allowing them to communicate without saying a word, some Cherokee people accused Sequoyah of witchcraft.

But Sequoyah had simply adapted the communications technology of the time — pen, ink and paper — for the use of the Cherokee people and to ensure the long-term survival of their language.

Just seven years after Sequoyah introduced his syllabary to the Cherokee people, the nation installed a printing press and began to publish a bilingual newspaper, The Cherokee Phoenix, which is still published today. Literacy spread quickly through the nation as books and hymnals were translated into Cherokee.

During the century that followed, the nation worked with manufacturers to incorporate the syllabary onto typewriters, and eventually did the same with electronic word processors. In the mid-1980s, Cherokee linguist Durbin Feeling worked with a group in Louisiana to develop the first Cherokee language word-processing program.

 “Every piece of writing technology since Sequoyah invented the syllabary has been used by the nation to keep the language alive,” says Roy Boney, manager of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma language program.

Today, 11 full-time staff members, nine of them fluent in Cherokee, are committed to the program. There are also six contract translators and 12 community language instructors, says Julie Hubbard, a spokeswoman for the Cherokee Nation.

The program operates the Office of Translation, the Community Language Program, the Language Technology program and provides staff support for a Cherokee-degree program at Northeastern State University. The nation’s total annual investment in the language program exceeds $1 million.

The most recent project of the Language Program was to work with the Commonwealth Braille and Talking Book Cooperative to convert the 86 symbols of the syllabary into the raised dots of the Braille language for the blind and visually impaired.

“We provided copies of our Cherokee syllabary, sample text and other items to be able to make Braille in Cherokee a reality,” Boney says. “We want to stay in the forefront by offering the Cherokee language on as many written tools as possible to preserve and protect our Native tongue.”

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