Cherokee syllabary

E193047

The Cherokee syllabary is a writing system of 85 characters created in the early 19th century to represent the sounds of the Cherokee language and dramatically increase literacy among Cherokee people.

All labels observed (1)

Label Occurrences
Cherokee syllabary canonical 10

How this entity was disambiguated

Statements (50)

Predicate Object
instanceOf syllabary
writing system
approximateCreationYear c. 1821
caseTypes lowercase
uppercase
creationPeriod early 19th century
creator Sequoyah
creatorNameInCherokee ᏍᏏᏉᏯ (Ssiquoya)
currentUse digital communication
education
literature
religious texts
signage
effect increased Cherokee literacy
encodingStandard Unicode
firstNewspaperUsing Cherokee Phoenix
firstNewspaperUsingYear 1828
graphemeToSoundRelation mostly one syllable per character
hasCaseDistinction yes
hasDistinctDigits no
historicalSignificance contributed to high literacy rates among 19th-century Cherokee
one of the few scripts invented by a single individual
influencedBy Sequoyah’s observation of English alphabetic writing
iso15924Code Cher
languageFamily Iroquoian languages
notablePublication Cherokee Phoenix
notablePublicationLanguage Cherokee language
surface form: Cherokee
numberOfCharacters 85
officialStatus official writing system of the Cherokee Nation
official writing system of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians
official writing system of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians
phonologicalUnitRepresented syllable
primaryRegion Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma
surface form: Cherokee Nation

United States of America
surface form: United States
primaryUserGroup Cherokee
surface form: Cherokee people
purpose representation of Cherokee syllables
revitalizationEfforts used in Cherokee language revitalization programs
scriptCategory featural syllabary
scriptDirection left-to-right
scriptFamily independent invention
timeToWidespreadUse within a few years of introduction
unicodeBlock Cherokee language
surface form: Cherokee

Cherokee Supplement
usedFor Cherokee language
writingMedium books
digital text
manuscripts
newspapers
writingSystemScope single language
writingSystemType syllabary

How these facts were elicited

Referenced by (10)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Cherokee Nation (historical) developed Cherokee syllabary
Iroquoian languages haveWritingSystem Cherokee syllabary
Cherokee language writingSystem Cherokee syllabary
Cherokee language usesScript Cherokee syllabary
Sequoyah languageCreated Cherokee syllabary
Sequoyah notableWork Cherokee syllabary
Cherokee Phoenix scriptUsed Cherokee syllabary
Cherokee writingSystem Cherokee syllabary