ᏣᎳᎩ ᎧᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ - Cherokee Language

ᏗᏓᎴᏂᏍᎬᎢ ᎤᏁᎳᏅᎯ ᏚᏬᏢᏁ ᏚᎸᎶᎢ ᎠᎴ ᎡᎶᎯ ᎡᎶᎯᏃ ᏂᏓᏤᎸᎾ ᎠᎴ ᎤᏚᎸᎭᏉ ᎨᏎᎢ.  ᎤᎵᏏᎩᏃ ᎤᏭᏝᎡ ᎠᏍᏛᎩ.  ᎤᏁᎳᏅᎯᏃ ᎤᏓᏅᏙ ᎠᎹᏱ ᎦᏚᎢ ᎦᏃᎯᎵᏙᎮᎢ.  ᎤᏁᎳᏅᎯᏃ ᎢᎦ ᏫᎦᏙᎩ, ᎤᏛᏁᎢ; ᎢᎦᏃ ᎢᎤᏙᏤᎢ.
   (ᎼᏏ ᎤᏬᏪᎳᏅᎯ 1:1-3)

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
   (Genesis 1:1-3)

Another syllabary presentation order

ᎡᎠᎳᏥ*ᏭᏪᎵᏁᏱᎩᎼᏏᏢᎣᎷ
ᎴᎭᏬᏠᏔᏴᎸᎯᏍᏲᏀᎱᎪᏧᎽᏎ
ᏐᏟᏈᏇᏌᏆᏃᎧᏨᏒᏂᎦᏙᎨᏓ
ᎬᏫᎢᎤᏰᎲᏛᎫᏦᏉᏄᎾᎶᏳᏤ
ᏗᏮᏚᏕᏣᎥᏅᏖᎹᏑᏡᎮᎰᎻ
ᏝᏯᏩᏘᏞᎿᏊᏡᎺᏋ

The asterisk * indicates where the obsolete symbol for /mv/appears.

Notes

• Where there are several characters per box, the pronunciation has been given in parentheses. Otherwise, for example, Ꮃ is /la/. In the modern orthography, there is no symbol for /mv/, although Sequoyah’s original script contained a character for /mv/. The character Ꮝ is /s/, with no proceeding vowel.
• The first row’s characters represent a glottal stop followed by a vowel (Ꭰ is /ʔa/, Ꭱ is /ʔe/). This glottal stop is almost always ignored in syllabary charts.
• /v/ is pronounced [] (the sound in English uh-uh, or uh-huh). In speech, vowels are occasionally elided or omitted, but they are always written as if the vowel were present.
• /ts/ is often pronounced [dʒ]. /tl/ can lose the [t] and sound like [ɬ]. North Carolina dialects do not have /tl/~/dl/, pronouncing them like /ts/.
• Cherokee writing does not typically differentiate between voiceless and voiced sounds, meaning that [k] and [g] are usually written the same, as are [kw] and [gw], [d] and [t], and [dl] and [tl]. This means that Ꮗ can be either [kwe] or [gwe]. In some cases, the two voicings are rendered with separate glyphs, as in Ꭶ [ga] and Ꭷ [ka].
• By not marking voicing in the majority of cases, the syllabary in fact accurately represents the underlying structure of the language. The symbol Ꭷ [ka] is grammatically /gha/, and Ꮤ [ta] is grammatically /dha/. It is only the post-consonantal /h/ which is missing from the orthography.
• Sequoyah’s syllabary is not entirely phonemic: it is not written exactly as pronounced. Neither /ʔ/ nor /h/ is written at the end of a syllable (except for Ꮐ). Tone marking is completely absent. This is not necessarily a criticism of the system, as efficient orthographies often leave out super segmental information (such as stress, vowel length, and tone) as this omission rarely leads to confusion. Note that English does not consistantly mark these either.