CHEROKEE ALPHABET EXPLAINED

Of the many native American cultures in the United States, only one developed an alphabet and written language.

The Cherokee, also called Ani' Yun' wiya, or the Principal People, was one of the five "civilized" tribes of the Southeastern United States and the only one to develop their own alphabet and written language.

Prentice Robinson, education director of the Cherokee National Historical Society at Tahlequah, Okla., said in an address here Monday that the primary reason for the development of the Cherokee alphabet and written language was to translate the Bible and hymn books from English to Cherokee.

Robinson spoke to a group at the Trail of Tears State Park Visitor Center north of Cape Girardeau.

The Cherokee was called "civilized" because, unlike other Indian tribes in the early history of the United States, they and four other Indian tribes in the Southeast quickly adopted many of their neighboring white European's lifestyles by intermarriage and by adopting the Christian religion, said Robinson.

The only other Indian cultures in North America with a written language was the Cree in Canada, he said.

Robinson, who is nearly half-Cherokee, is a retired school teacher. One of his ancestors led one of the groups of 1,000 Cherokees that stopped at what is now Trail of Tears State Park along the Trail of Tears to northeast Oklahoma in 1838-39.

Today, Robinson is attempting to preserve the Cherokee culture and language by teaching it to others at the tribal headquarters in Tahlequah.

Robinson said the Cherokee's alphabet and written language made them better educated than many of the white people who lived near their tribal homelands in the Great Smoky Mountains in the 1700s and early 1880s.

He said the alphabet enabled the Cherokee to write their own constitution, based on the U.S. Constitution, to govern themselves, and to publish a four-page weekly tribal newspaper in Cherokee and English from 1828 to 1834.

In addition, the Cherokee also had a Supreme Court and a council house that was the "Capital" building of the Cherokee nation at New Echota, Ga.

"They never dressed like other Indians and did not wear a lot of feathers. They wore deer skin, and, after the arrival of the white man, quickly adopted his style of clothing," said Robinson.

Robinson said the Cherokee alphabet was developed by George Gist, better known by his Cherokee name, Sequoyah; and the Rev. Samuel Worcester, a missionary who lived and worked with the Cherokee in North Carolina.

"It took Sequoyah and Worcester 12 years to develop the alphabet," said Robinson. "But within three to six months after it was completed, 90 percent of the Cherokee could read and write. They were eager to learn."

Robinson said each letter of the the Cherokee alphabet represents a syllable, much like the Eastern languages such as Hebrew. He said there are striking similarities between the Cherokee and Hebrew languages.

The Cherokee alphabet has six vowels, 12 consonants, and an "s" sound. "It's a tonal language," said Robinson. "It must be spoken correctly to be understood. There is very little mouth movement; most of the sound comes from the back of the throat. There is very little punctuation and no capitalization."

Robinson said a sentence in Cherokee is reversed because the object comes before the subject and verb. He said the Greek influence in the alphabet probably came from Worcester, who, as a minister, was also a trained Greek scholar.

But time has not been good to the Cherokee's alphabet and written language. Robinson said that over the years it has fallen into disuse in favor of English, like other foreign tongues.

He said of the 120,000 registered Cherokee who live in the Western United States today, only 12 percent can speak their native tongue and less than 1 percent can read and write Cherokee.

Another problem is the language has not kept up with changes and new technology during the past 20 to 30 years, he said. There are some English words today for which there is no Cherokee equivalent, Robinson said.

But times are changing. Robinson said public schools in North Carolina, and now in Oklahoma, are offering Cherokee and other native American languages as a foreign language.

He said many Cherokee and part-Cherokee want to learn their native language as a way of returning to their roots.