Cherokee Words: From Handwritten Letters to Printed Pages

Text 1: Writing That Traveled by Hand

For a long time, Cherokee people passed along knowledge through spoken words. In 1821, a Cherokee man named Sequoyah completed a new way to write their language. Each written sign stood for a syllable, a word part spoken with one beat. His writing system is called a syllabary.

People learned to match the signs with sounds they already knew. Then they could join signs to write Cherokee words. A person who learned the system could teach someone else. Writing spread from learner to learner without each person needing a lesson from Sequoyah himself.

Cherokee writers exchanged letters with people who lived far away. Spoken messages needed someone to remember and repeat them. A written message could carry the writer's words on paper. Each letter was written by hand, however. Making another copy meant writing the message again. How could the same words reach many readers more quickly?

Text 2: Writing That Traveled by Press

In 1828, the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper began appearing in New Echota, in what is now Georgia. Its pages included both Cherokee and English. Like handwritten letters, the newspaper used Sequoyah's system to share words in the Cherokee language. Unlike a personal letter, one newspaper issue was made for many readers.

Printing Cherokee required special type: small metal pieces with raised signs. Workers arranged these pieces to form words. They put ink on the raised surfaces, and a printing press pressed paper against them. Once a page was arranged, workers could print many copies without writing each one by hand.

Copies of the newspaper could travel to different places, carrying the same news to many people. Readers still needed to learn the syllabary, just as letter writers did. Teaching helped people understand the signs; printing helped put more pages into their hands. These two paths helped Cherokee writing spread. Cherokee people still use the syllabary today.