[Multilingual Monday] Again, Saving Cherokee
Today's article is all about Cherokee. Again. Oh hush ^o^
First off, a fun link showing kinship term changes in Cherokee, using Star Wars as a reference. While it doesn't use the script, this particular page DOES show the conjugation of "father," which is a verb in Cherokee and NOT a noun (it's meaning is kind of like "is a father to," with the two nouns conjugating this verb). In Cherokee, a relationship can NOT be owner, but rather is dependent upon one person being something to another, and that is shown via verbs using the complex Cherokee verb system, in which objects, subjects, frequency, tense, intention, direction, and more are all part of one verb.
Also, here is an article about the new Cherokee keyboard that the Cherokee nation has been working on with Apple for years, that has fairly recently been released. Because of the huge amount of characters in the Cherokee syllabry -- 85 -- the keyboard isn't spread out requiring unnecessary shifting, but rather each letter on the keyboard represents a syllable and "-a", and to use the other vowels that consonant has, one uses the bottom row containing the six Cherokee vowels. It takes a bit to get used to but makes quite a bit of sense and is easier than remembering three pages of key layouts.
Now, don't think I'm not happy about seeing the Cherokee keyboard -- quite the contrary, as I had to get it the moment I had heard about it. But that being said, I have to question just how effective this will be in actually reviving the language. I don't disagree that targeting younger cell-phone savvy users is a good start, but in the end of the day, there's a severe lack of Cherokee material, and this is, I feel, a good reason the language is being abandoned. There is a weekly Cherokee radio programme, and that's it. There are no movies, TV shows, and even the Cherokee Phoenix -- the newspaper that helped spread literacy a century ago -- now features a scant two or three Cherokee-penned articles a month. Even the Cherokee Wikipedia has stalled at barely more than 200 articles, most of which are stubs. In short, I echo the sentiments of those who worked feverishly to spread modern Hebrew: "If you want your kids to read Hebrew, give them Hebrew to read." Likewise, giving a Cherokee child SOMETHING to read -- ANYTHING outside of the Bible or a newspaper article -- will geratly increase one's desire to USE the language, rather than letting it collect dust from disuse.
So why NOT some Cherokee TV programming? A Cherokee book or two? Even a TRANSLATION! Hell, Harry Potter is in Basque and freakin' LATIN, so why NOT Cherokee?? Maybe a promotional song competition not unlike the Liet International Song Contest to promote European minority languages? The immersion classes are a great start, but you need to immerse the children into SOMETHING, ne?
First off, a fun link showing kinship term changes in Cherokee, using Star Wars as a reference. While it doesn't use the script, this particular page DOES show the conjugation of "father," which is a verb in Cherokee and NOT a noun (it's meaning is kind of like "is a father to," with the two nouns conjugating this verb). In Cherokee, a relationship can NOT be owner, but rather is dependent upon one person being something to another, and that is shown via verbs using the complex Cherokee verb system, in which objects, subjects, frequency, tense, intention, direction, and more are all part of one verb.
Also, here is an article about the new Cherokee keyboard that the Cherokee nation has been working on with Apple for years, that has fairly recently been released. Because of the huge amount of characters in the Cherokee syllabry -- 85 -- the keyboard isn't spread out requiring unnecessary shifting, but rather each letter on the keyboard represents a syllable and "-a", and to use the other vowels that consonant has, one uses the bottom row containing the six Cherokee vowels. It takes a bit to get used to but makes quite a bit of sense and is easier than remembering three pages of key layouts.
Now, don't think I'm not happy about seeing the Cherokee keyboard -- quite the contrary, as I had to get it the moment I had heard about it. But that being said, I have to question just how effective this will be in actually reviving the language. I don't disagree that targeting younger cell-phone savvy users is a good start, but in the end of the day, there's a severe lack of Cherokee material, and this is, I feel, a good reason the language is being abandoned. There is a weekly Cherokee radio programme, and that's it. There are no movies, TV shows, and even the Cherokee Phoenix -- the newspaper that helped spread literacy a century ago -- now features a scant two or three Cherokee-penned articles a month. Even the Cherokee Wikipedia has stalled at barely more than 200 articles, most of which are stubs. In short, I echo the sentiments of those who worked feverishly to spread modern Hebrew: "If you want your kids to read Hebrew, give them Hebrew to read." Likewise, giving a Cherokee child SOMETHING to read -- ANYTHING outside of the Bible or a newspaper article -- will geratly increase one's desire to USE the language, rather than letting it collect dust from disuse.
So why NOT some Cherokee TV programming? A Cherokee book or two? Even a TRANSLATION! Hell, Harry Potter is in Basque and freakin' LATIN, so why NOT Cherokee?? Maybe a promotional song competition not unlike the Liet International Song Contest to promote European minority languages? The immersion classes are a great start, but you need to immerse the children into SOMETHING, ne?