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Cherokee (ᏣᎳᎩ ᎦᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ, Tsalagi Gawonihisdi [dʒalaˈɡî ɡawónihisˈdî]) is an endangered to moribund[lower-alpha 1] Iroquoian language[4] and the native language of the Cherokee people.[6][7][8] Ethnologue states that there were 1,520 Cherokee speakers out of 376,000 Cherokee in 2018,[4] while a tally by the three Cherokee tribes in 2019 recorded ~2,100 speakers.[5] The number of speakers is in decline. About eight fluent speakers die each month, and only a handful of people under the age of 40 are fluent.[11] The dialect of Cherokee in Oklahoma is "definitely endangered", and the one in North Carolina is "severely endangered" according to UNESCO.[12] The Lower dialect, formerly spoken on the South Carolina–Georgia border, has been extinct since about 1900.[13] The dire situation regarding the future of the two remaining dialects prompted the Tri-Council of Cherokee tribes to declare a state of emergency in June 2019, with a call to enhance revitalization efforts.[5]
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Cherokee | |
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ᏣᎳᎩ ᎦᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ Tsalagi Gawonihisdi | |
Pronunciation | (Oklahoma dialect) [dʒalaˈɡî ɡawónihisˈdî] |
Native to | North America |
Region | east Oklahoma; Great Smoky Mountains[1] and Qualla Boundary in North Carolina[2] Also in Arkansas.[3] and Cherokee community in California. |
Ethnicity | Cherokee |
Native speakers | 1520 to ~2100 (2018 and 2019)[4][5] |
Iroquoian
| |
Cherokee syllabary, Latin script | |
Official status | |
Official language in | Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina Cherokee Nation[6][7][8][9] of Oklahoma |
Regulated by | United Keetoowah Band Department of Language, History, & Culture[7][8] Council of the Cherokee Nation |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 | chr |
ISO 639-3 | chr |
Glottolog | cher1273 |
Linguasphere | 63-AB |
Pre-contact Distribution of the Cherokee Language | |
Current geographic distribution of the Cherokee language | |
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Around 200 speakers of the Eastern (also referred to as the Middle or Kituwah) dialect remain in North Carolina and language preservation efforts include the New Kituwah Academy, a bilingual immersion school.[14] The largest remaining group of Cherokee speakers is centered around Tahlequah, Oklahoma, where the Western (Overhill or Otali) dialect predominates. The Cherokee Immersion School (Tsalagi Tsunadeloquasdi) in Tahlequah serves children in federally recognized tribes from pre-school up to grade 6.[15]
Cherokee is polysynthetic,[16] the only Southern Iroquoian language,[17] and it uses a unique syllabary writing system.[18] As a polysynthetic language, Cherokee is highly different from Indo-European languages such as English, French, or Spanish, and can be difficult for adult learners to acquire.[6] A single Cherokee word can convey ideas that would require multiple English words to express, including the context of the assertion, connotations about the speaker, the action, and the object of the action. The morphological complexity of the Cherokee language is best exhibited in verbs, which comprise approximately 75% of the language, as opposed to only 25% of the English language.[6] Verbs must contain at minimum a pronominal prefix, a verb root, an aspect suffix, and a modal suffix.[19]
Extensive documentation of the language exists, as it is the indigenous language of the Americas in which the most literature has been published.[20] Such publications include a Cherokee dictionary and grammar as well as several editions of the New Testament and Psalms of the Bible[21] and the Cherokee Phoenix (ᏣᎳᎩ ᏧᎴᎯᏌᏅᎯ, Tsalagi Tsulehisanvhi), the first newspaper published by Native Americans in the United States and the first published in a Native American language.[22][23]