Tsalagi

Cherokee, North Carolina

It was raining and foggy as we drove through the mountains and crossed the border into the Cherokee Indian Reservation. Through the mist I spied a torch burning upon a sign which read, in Cherokee letters, "Detsvyadanilvga — Tsalagi Aniyvwiyasdv Atselovi". Under this, in English, it said "Welcome — Cherokee Indian Reservation". I had been looking forward to going to this place, and I was certainly not disappointed. I was delighted to see the bilingual sign welcoming us, and as we drove through town there were even more signs in Cherokee. The Cherokee Hardware & Building Supply had "Tsalagi Anesgesdodi" emblazoned at the top of its sign, and nearly every street sign in the reservation was bilingual! I thought it was so cool to see "Tsali Tsuwasohisdi" printed under "Tsali Boulevard", and "Lii Tela" under "Lee Taylor Rd".

The interesting thing about the Cherokee language is that it is not written with the Roman alphabet, but has its own syllabary. The Cherokee syllabary was most likely devised in the early 1800's by George Guess (Ssiquaya), a monolingual Cherokee. He borrowed some letters from the Roman alphabet, but gave them completely different sounds. An example of this is the word "Tsalagi", which means "Cherokee". In the syllabary it looks very similar to "CWY".

While in Cherokee we worshiped with the congregation of the Lord's church there, and found that several of the members were native speakers of the language. That afternoon we visited the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, which we found to be very interesting. It followed the history of the Cherokee people, from the time when they lived in their ancestral homelands, until most of them were forced to go to Indian Territory on the Trail of Tears. The Cherokees that are in North Carolina today are descendants of those Cherokees who were able to remain, for various reasons.

After we went through the exhibits, we had to look in the gift shop. My sister bought a hat with "Tsalagi" embroidered on it, I found a patch, and also—the most exciting of all—I bought a Cherokee New Testament! It is a reprint of the original that was printed in the 1800's, and is printed entirely in the Cherokee syllabary. It is black, with gold letters on the front reading "Itse Kanohedv Datlohisdv". Although I do not know Cherokee, I can read (but not understand) it with some difficulty.

As we left the reservation continuing our journey, we saw a billboard encouraging speakers of Cherokee to speak the language at home. Visiting the Cherokees was a very interesting experience, and I am glad that they are working to preserve their language for the generations to come. For more information about the Cherokee language and other Native American tongues, visit my website at www.hello-oklahoma.com.