The Cherokee Syllabary (American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series)

by Ellen Cushman

In 1821, Sequoyah, a Cherokee metalworker and inventor, introduced a writing system that he had been developing for more than a decade. His creation—the Cherokee syllabary—helped his people learn to read and write within five years and became a principal part of their identity. This groundbreaking study traces the creation, dissemination, and evolution of Sequoyah’s syllabary from script to print to digital forms. Breaking with conventional understanding, author Ellen Cushman shows that the syllabary was not based on alphabetic writing, as is often thought, but rather on Cherokee syllables and, more importantly, on Cherokee meanings. Employing an engaging narrative approach, Cushman relates how Sequoyah created the syllabary apart from Western alphabetic models. But he called it an alphabet because he anticipated the Western assumption that only alphabetic writing is legitimate. Calling the syllabary an alphabet, though, has led to our current misunderstanding of just what it is and of the genius behind it—until now. In her opening chapters, Cushman traces the history of Sequoyah’s invention and explains the logic of the syllabary’s structure and the graphic relationships among the characters, both of which might have made the system easy for native speakers to use. Later chapters address the syllabary’s enduring significance, showing how it allowed Cherokees to protect, enact, and codify their knowledge and to weave non-Cherokee concepts into their language and life. The result was their enhanced ability to adapt to social change on and in Cherokee terms. Cushman adeptly explains complex linguistic concepts in an accessible style, even as she displays impressive understanding of interrelated issues in Native American studies, colonial studies, cultural anthropology, linguistics, rhetoric, and literacy studies. Profound, like the invention it explores, The Cherokee Syllabary will reshape the study of Cherokee history and culture. Published through the Recovering Languages and Literacies of the Americas initiative, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Genres: Language, History

260 pages, Paperback

First published December 10, 2011

Reviews

[Alexander Labinsky · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, Cushman does a lot of work to show how the Cherokee syllabary works, why it was cleverly designed and how Sequoyah influenced the print version of the syllabary that is used today. However, on the other hand, Cushman seems not bothered much by the implications of her findings or exploring the reasons. As an example: Cushman goes to great lengths to prove that the original order of the syllabary as proposed by Sequoyah has an inherent logic that helps memorising the syllables - but does not eplore at all what that logic is derived from and how the logic helped to memorise seemingly unrelated syllables. My assumption would be that the logic is related to mnemotic techniques the Cherokee employed for the oral traditions or patterns or hand gestures used for wampums or hand signs. However, this is pure speculation as Cushman seems not to be interested in all to explore this question. Proving that the syllabary was indeed a Cherokee invention seems to be her whole motivation. That is a pity, because it lowers the value of her work - too many of her findings seem to be merely sketches without a fully developed reasoning of why her work matters to the study of the development of the Cherokee syllabary. Therefore, sadly, only 3 out of 5 stars.

[Evan Þ. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This's a very interesting linguistic and historical analysis of the Cherokee syllabary and its place in tribal culture. While Cushman is clearly a cheerleader for Cherokee culture in its own right, her analysis still shows the syllabary does have unique value.

The syllabary was, indeed, invented by Sequoyah - uniquely, by himself - circa 1821. Contrary to legend, there's good evidence he did speak some English; however, he didn't derive the syllabary from English and presented himself as unable to speak English. The syllabary spread like wildfire. A few years later, almost every Cherokee was literate, Sequoyah was working on getting a printing press in Cherokee, and an American missionary was explaining to his missions society that they had to print Cherokee works in the syllabary or else no one would read them. Since then, until the modern era, it's continued to be a mainstay of Cherokee culture.

Cushman argues, with evidence, that the Cherokee language lends itself uniquely to a syllabary. Most words are compound words, where each syllable has a unique meaning that contributes uniquely to the overall meaning. While the word might still translate as one English word, it's assembled like a phrase. So, each of the 85 characters of the syllabary can be seen as repesenting one "word". Of course, these 85 words may have different meanings in different contexts - but they're still very meaningful units. Cushman confirms this analysis by interviews with and accounts from fluent Cherokee speakers.

I'm even more fascinated now by the syllabary and by Sequoyah as a person.

[Paul Lunger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ellen Cushman's "The Cherokee Syllabary" is a book that is both extremely interesting as well as being extremely frustrating due to writing style. The book itself describes the history of the written language of the Cherokee Indians explaining the origins and needs of the language itself as well as how it has stayed relevant even among people who mostly don't entirely understand this 85-character language which isn't technically a true alphabet. Cushman's history and examples are fine; however, the book at times also reads more like a research paper with citations that actually badly interrupt the flow of this book and are more annoyance than anything else. Despite those issues this is still an interesting read on this very unique language.

[Sven · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a scholarly book filled with the history of the Cherokee's writing system, invented by Sequoyah in the 1820s. The author chronicles how the syllabary has helped the Cherokee people preserve their culture and identity, through their difficult history and complex relations with Europeans.

I found the later chapters especially interesting, relating how the Cherokee Nation is working to preserve and extend their language with education, advocacy, and technology. It's a work in progress, and may be a successful example of remaining a distinct people while moving them into new ways of living in a complicated world.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who is of part-Cherokee ancestry [1] but not a member of the Cherokee Nation, I suppose I am part of the ideal audience of this book. This book is written in English by a scholar with a Cherokee background and slight knowledge of the language but is written clearly for those who are friendly to the Cherokee people, somewhat knowledgeable about their history, and at least prone to be friendly to the efforts of the Cherokee people for the persistence of their people and their history and their language. Given that few people appear to be particularly proficient in the written language at present, this book and others like it are making a bid for cultural survival through the encouragement of resources in time and support to make it no longer a stigma for people to learn a somewhat revolutionary written language, the subject of this deeply nuanced and politically-inclined book. I wish to make it plain that while I have a guarded support for the cultural efforts of the author to encourage knowledge of and respect for the Cherokee syllabary created by Sequoyah in the early 19th century, there are elements of this book I found deeply troubling and aspects of the author's argument I do not agree with.

The book itself is about two hundred pages in length and contains eight chapters. After a list of figures, tables, a preface and lengthy acknowledgments and a note about conventions, the author introduces the subject of her book and her desire to support the perseverance of the Cherokee people. The first chapter looks at Sequoyah and the politics of language, in his deliberate desire to show himself (falsely) as being largely unaware of English in his creation of a glyphic language that managed to capture both the morphemes of the Cherokee language as well as encode some aspect of the meaning in the design of the characters themselves. The next three chapters detail this thesis of the author's in considerable detail, looking at the syllabary as a writing system, the design of the characters/glyphs, and the transition from the manuscript to the print form of the language. The author then looks at Elias Boudinot's efforts as the editor of the Cherokee Phoenix to portray the goals and struggles and perspective of the Cherokee people to friendly outsiders, much as the author seeks to do with this book. After that comes three closing chapters that examine the survival and use of the Cherokee writing system during the periods of 1840-1920, 1920-1980, and since 1980. The tone throughout is one of righteous indignation, warm partisanship, and cautious and guarded optimism.

Nevertheless, there are some aspects of this book that are worthy of criticism. For example, it is unclear if the author herself is sufficiently knowledgeable about the Cherokee language to write about it in such depth. To make the sort of claims that she does about the multiple layers of meaning in the Cherokee syllabary, it would have increased her credibility for her to be more knowledgeable in the language itself. Likewise, the author's sense of partisanship is more than a little bit of a turnoff for those readers who come to this book with some awareness of the nuanced and complicated history of the Cherokee people. The author wishes to defend the perspective of the corrupt John Ross party among the Cherokee and glosses over the anarchy and violence that resulted from the desire of Cherokees to settle scores over the troubled Treaty of New Echota. Specifically, the author fails to show any sort of understanding of what drove Georgia Cherokee to sign a treaty despite knowing the disapproval of the Cherokee themselves of removal, or to acknowledge that in the circumstances of the time that the treaty was likely the best deal that the Cherokee were going to get in an immensely hostile political and cultural climate. Likewise, the author's obvious bias towards Cherokee religious beliefs and cultural traditions is rather off-putting to those of us who are Christian, as it smacks of the left-wing multiculturalism that is one of our age's more serious cultural problems. There is much in this book to enjoy and appreciate, and a great deal more to ponder and muse over, but certainly a great deal worthy of criticism as well. A strong concern for the well-being of the Cherokee people does not mean supporting a leftist cultural agenda, something this author appears not to realize.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2012...