How the Cherokee language has adapted to texts

Whenever a new communication technology was introduced into society, the Cherokee people have ensured that their written language could adapt.

From the printing press and the typewriter to today's readily available digital technologies like computers and smart phones, the Cherokee language is fully functional thanks to the help of tireless advocates and activists.

As one of the most actively used native languages in the US, the Cherokee language is spoken by populations in North Carolina and Oklahoma, as well as other states across the country. While more people are now able to write the Cherokee language with syllabics — written characters that each represent a syllable — retaining and encouraging more speakers of the language continues to be a high priority. And the use of technology has been one way to attract increased interest.

A new animated video produced by the Cherokee Nation Education Services and the Language Technology Program tells the story of this adoption of new technologies over time. Narrated by the Cherokee hero Sequoyah, who created the first Cherokee syllabary in 1821, the video introduces viewers to some of these breakthroughs.

The Cherokee Nation Language Technology Program supports those interested in utilizing written Cherokee, with a special focus on digital technology. Its aim is to create “innovative solutions for the Cherokee language on all digital platforms including smartphones, laptops, desktops, tablets and social networks.” Available on its website are resources including a glossary of neologisms for technology-related terms, keyboard layouts and fonts.

Communication technology is constantly evolving, and the Cherokee language keeps evolving right along with it.

An animated video tells the story of how Cherokee adapted to new technologies:

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-09-13/how-cherokee-language-has-adapted-texts-iphones

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http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-09-13/how-cherokee-language-has-adapted-texts-iphones

Cherokee speaker translates letters for Yale University: Cherokee Nation translator works on 2,000 handwritten documents

TAHLEQUAH — Century-old journals, political messages and medicinal formulas handwritten in Cherokee and archived at Yale University are being translated for the first time.

The Cherokee Nation has a language translation department that contracts with Apple, Microsoft, Google and Ivy League universities for Cherokee translation projects.

One of the tribe’s 13 translators, Durbin Feeling, is transcribing some 2,000 documents at Yale’s Beinecke Library, to catalogue and eventually make public.

The documents, spanning from the late 19th to mid-20th century, are from the collection of the late Jack and Anna Kilpatrick, Cherokee researchers.

“Native American communities have endured some of America’s most sustained forms of cultural oppression, and contemporary Indian nations, tribal members and supporters work tirelessly to reverse generations of assimilation-orientated designs,” Ned Blackhawk, Yale professor of history and American studies, and advisory member at Yale’s Native American Cultural Center, said in a media release.

“The work of linguists and language speakers in such efforts is particularly essential, especially in keeping alive and vibrant the languages of the first Americans.

“The Cherokee Nation works at the leading edge of such linguistic activism. Their researchers and linguistic specialists have helped adapt 21st century technologies with their traditional culture and have developed among the most advanced pedagogical practices in the nation.”

The Cherokee Nation translation department is also working with museums in Oklahoma and finishing up its largest translation of 500,000 words for Microsoft.

“Our speakers are taking Cherokee history, in the form of our language, and preserving it for our future by incorporating our written alphabet into smart phones and computer language settings, making it possible for our youth to email entirely in Cherokee,” Principal Chief Bill John Baker said in the release. “They are one of our most valuable resources, not only passing on their wisdom to our Cherokee Immersion students learning to speak, but for our future who will know more about our lives and way of thinking, revealed in all these translated archived manuscripts.”

Feeling’s first language is Cherokee.

He has a master’s degree in linguistics from the University of California, Irvine, and honorary doctorate from Ohio State.

He’s traveled across the U.S. and Germany sharing how to speak, read and write the 85-character Cherokee syllabary.

He’s also taught Cherokee language and culture at the University of Oklahoma and Northeastern State University.

“Universities and museums often have all these documents and nobody to read them, to tell them what they say,” Feeling said in the release. “They’ll choose the ones they’re curious about and let me translate, which benefits us all.”

The Cherokee Nation has a comprehensive language program that includes community language classes, online language courses, employee language classes, a language technology program, an office of translation and an immersion school for preschool through sixth grade and partners with Northeastern State University on a degree program for Cherokee language. In addition to these initiatives, the Cherokee Nation also shows a strong dedication to language by including protection of language in the Chief’s oath of office, council resolutions supporting language and a quantity of signs on Cherokee Nation property that are written in the Cherokee syllabary.

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