Cherokee syllabary | writing system | Britannica (original) (raw)
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development
In Cherokee language …half-Cherokee Indian who developed the Cherokee syllabary from 1809 to 1821, began by trying to devise a logographic alphabet (one graphic symbol for one word), though that eventually proved to be too unwieldy. He next determined to create characters for each syllable. This he did, producing a handwritten system with… Read More
In North American Indian languages: Writing and texts The most famous system is that invented by Sequoyah for Cherokee, his native language. It is not an alphabet but a syllabary, in which each symbol stands for a consonant-vowel sequence. The forms of characters were derived in part from the English alphabet but without regard to their… Read More
effect on Cherokee culture
In Cherokee …was the syllabary of the Cherokee language, developed in 1821 by Sequoyah, a Cherokee who had served with the U.S. Army in the Creek War. The syllabary—a system of writing in which each symbol represents a syllable—was so successful that almost the entire tribe became literate within a short time.… Read More
work of Sequoyah
In Sequoyah …was the creator of the Cherokee writing system (see Cherokee language). Read More
