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.

Pax Vobiscum

"'The spell lies in two words,' replied Wamba. 'Pax vobiscum will answer all queries. If you go or come, eat or drink, bless or ban, Pax vobiscum carries you through it all.'"

Thus quoth Wamba, the wise fool, to his master Cedric. Cedric, Athelstane, Rowena, Ivanhoe, and the Jew and his daughter are all being held captive in the castle of Reginald Front-de-Bœuf. Although it seems that there is no hope, the faithful fool Wamba and the swineherder, Gurth, have been able to gather a force around the castle.

The allies without send a message to the castle in the Saxon tongue, ordering them to give up the prisoners or else. In reply, Front-de-Bœuf and de Bracy send a letter written in Norman French, declaring that the prisoners were to be executed, and that they should send a priest to prepare them for death.

Although the letter is in French, there is one among the allies who can read it. Although there is a friar in their midst, of the order of St. Dunstan, they decide to send Wamba, the Jester, dressed in the guise of a friar.

Wamba knows enough Latin to get by (with plenty of Pax vobiscums), and soon is in the room of Cedric and Athelstane. Wamba at first pretends to be a friar, but soon reveals himself and his plan.

Wamba offers to let Cedric take his disguise and escape, while he remains in the castle to take his place. Cedric tries to send Athelstane instead, but Wamba eloquently explains that he would give his life only for his master, and for no one else. Thus, Cedric takes the friar's garb and Pax vobiscum, and leaves the room.

This narration was written by Benjamin Bruce as a school assignment while reading Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott. "Pax vobiscum" is Latin for "peace be with you."

Voices of the Earth

If you can read Spanish, I would like to invite you to take a look at my new blog, Voces Terrae. The title means "Voices of the Earth" in Latin, and this new blog will feature my various writings in other languages, as well as interesting facts about different languages.

Right now I have a story written in an Australian aboriginal language on there, and I will soon be adding more.

Check it out!   www.benjaminbruce.us/voces

Lingua Latina

Latin was originally the language of Latium (Lazio in Italian), the region of Italy which includes Rome. The speakers of Latin were surrounded by people who spoke other tongues—many related to theirs, but some completely unrelated. To the west, Osco-Umbrian languages were used, and to the north were speakers of Faliscan and Etruscan. Faliscan was very closely related to Latin, being in the same branch of the Italic subfamily. However, Etruscan was in no way related to Latin—in fact, it was not even in the Indo-European language family, to which even our English language belongs.

When the Roman Empire was established and grew, Latin became a wide-spread language. The other languages of Italy gave way to this new world tongue, and are now known only by a few documents and inscriptions left to us. However, Latin never really died, as did its neighbours in Italy such as Etruscan and Umbrian.
Latin was the language of the Romans, and then of the Roman Empire. Along with Greek, it was the lingua franca of the known world, and spread as far as Britain and what is now Turkey. Although not all people in the Empire gave up their languages in favour of that of the Romans, many learned the new language.

After many years, the Latin of the various regions of Europe changed and became so different as to be mutually unintelligible to the other dialects of Latin. These became the Romance languages of today, such as Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalán, and many others.

Thus, Latin lives on in many parts of Europe and North America in its descendents. However, it is evident that Latin did not remain in some parts of the Empire. The Germanic languages of Britain and Germany are still spoken today, and you won’t find many speakers of Latin languages in north Africa either.