Writing, the Cherokee Syllabary, and the nature of Language

Writing,the Cherokee Syllabary,

and the nature of Language

Richard A. Rhodes

University of California

Berkeley

Cherokee Writing

• The first decades of the 19th century were a time of great social change for the Cherokee nation.• They were located in what is now

western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee.

• The tribe was under pressure from the United States to relocate from their traditional homeland and move west of the Mississippi.

Cherokee Writing

• There were significant social changes among the Cherokees, adapting to white pressures on their culture.• In the 1820’s a remarkable thing

happened in the Cherokee tribe.

Cherokee Writing

• In 1821 an illiterate Cherokee man introduced a writing system for the Cherokee language.• Once the initial sketicism of Cherokee

leaders was overcome, the use of the writing system spread quickly and widely.

Cherokee Writing

• By 1824 most Cherokee could read the system.• Currently ca. 10,000 of 15,000

Cherokee speakers use the system.

Cherokee Writing

• The man’s English name was George Guess or Gist.• But he is better known by his

Cherokee name, Sequoyah.• He had an English name

because he had a white ancestor.

• He was raised as Cherokee and didn’t speak any English.

Cherokee Writing

• Sequoyah was a silversmith by trade.• In 1809, he became obsessed with

the idea of “talking leaves”.• Paper with writing on it.

• He had seen whitemen’s writing but he didn’t speak English, so couldn’t read at all.

Cherokee Writing

• Neglecting other responsibilities, Sequoyah experimented with developing a writing system.• He began with the idea that there

should be a symbol for each word.• The immensity of the task, that there

were thousands of words, convinced him that another approach needed to be found.

Cherokee Writing

• Eventually he settled on a system which has a distinct symbol for each combination of a consonant with a following vowel.• Such a system is called a SYLLABARY.

• For example, ...• càlàki: ‘Cherokee’ [dzàlàgi:]ᏣᎳᎩ

= ca, = la, = kiᏣ Ꮃ Ꭹ

Cherokee Writing

• Cherokee has six vowels and thirteen consonants.• Vowels: i e a o u ə

• ə is a nasal vowel, like the vowels in uh-huh

Consonants: t k kw c tl s m n l w y h ʔ

This should add up to 78 symbols.But the combination mə doesn’t exist

So, 77 symbols

Cherokee Writing

• Cherokee has six vowels and thirteen consonants.• Vowels: i e a o u ə

• ə is a nasal vowel, like the vowels in uh-huh

• Consonants: t k kw c tl s m n l w y h ʔ

• This should add up to 78 symbols.• But the combination mə doesn’t exist

• So, 77 symbols

Cherokee Writing

• However, the Cherokee syllabary has 85 symbols.

Cherokee Writing

Cherokee Writing

• However, the Cherokee syllabary has 85 symbols.

• The extra symbols:• Some common consonant clusters

have their own symbols:• thi the tha, kha, hna , tlha• there is a letter for the syllable nah• and there is a letter for the single

consonant s

Cherokee Writing

• The Cherokee syllabary doesn’t match the sound structure of the language exactly.• Not only does the syllabary have

“excess” symbols ...• ... there are crucial features of

Cherokee pronunciation which the syllabary doesn’t distinguish.

Cherokee Writing

• Most instances of h after a consonant.• Sounds to English speakers like the difference

between t and d or k and g.

• hatəə̀ka ‘you did it’ ᎭᏛᎦ

• hathəə̀ka ‘you hung it up’ ᎭᏛᎦ

• Length in vowels• cikowhthíha ‘I see it’

ᏥᎪᏩᏘᎭ• ciikowhthíha ‘I see him/her.’

ᏥᎪᏩᏘᎭ

Cherokee Writing

• Tone• kiihla ‘dog’ ᎩᏟ

• (low tone on a long vowel)

• kiíka ‘blood’ ᎩᎦ• (rising tone on a long vowel)

• akíína ‘young’ ᎠᎩᎾ• (high tone on a long vowel)

Cherokee Writing

• Some syllable final consonants are written as whole syllables• tehlkə�ə�ʔi ‘tree’ ᏕᏈᎬ

• as if it were tehlukə�ə�

• Syllable final glottal stops aren’t written at all.• ata ‘wood’

ᎠᏓ• áʔta ‘young animal’ ᎠᏓ

Cherokee Writing

• The Cherokee syllabary doesn’t completely match the sound structure of the language.• But the important fact is ...

• ... it works well enough.

Writing Systems

• It turns out that significant problems in successful writing systems are common ...• Hebrew and Arabic barely write any vowels at

all.

• Haaretz (a major Israeli newspaper) ‘The World’• tz = צ(word final) = ץ ,/r/ = ר ,/ʔ/ = א,/h/ = ה

Writing Systems

• It turns out that significant problems in successful writing systems are common ...• French and English have spellings that are

based on pronunciations that are so archaic as to be unrecognizable.

• eau ‘water’ = 14th cent. French /eɑw/

• lake = 15th cent. English /lɑ:kə/

Writing Systems

• It turns out that significant problems in successful writing systems are common ...• Japanese writing uses a huge character set for

the words that bear most of the meaning and supplements it with, not one but two, syllabaries to deal with things that have no corresponding characters.• kanji (borrowed Chinese characters, 2000 in common

use, 6000 counting technical terms)• hiragana (for native Japanese words not covered by

kanji, and for grammatical uses, like the endings of verbs)

• katakana (for foreign words and for emphasis ≈ italics)

Writing Systems

• The reason that flawed writing systems are nonetheless successful tells us a lot about nature of writing ...

• ... and about language in general.

Properties of Language

• Language is highly redundant.• The estimate is about 50%• Steven Pinker:• “Thanks to the redundancy of

language, yxx cxn xndxrstxnd whxt x xm wrxtxng xvxn xf x rxplxcx xll thx vxwxls wxth xn "x" (t gts lttl hrdr f y dn't vn kn whr th vwls r)”.


• Redundancy is what makes it possible ...• ... for children to learn language.• ... for people to communicate in noisy

environments.• ... for people to be able to complete

one another’s sentences.• ... for writing systems, even bad

ones, to be adequate.


• But the fact that language is highly redundant belies a deeper truth ...• ... one that is more relevant to the

profession of writing.

• Language is at the same time information poor.• Typically much more information is

communicated than is spelled out in the words of the communication.


• The folk theory is that language is a coding of thought that transfers meaning from one person to another.• That’s how we talk about it.

• He’s having trouble putting it into words.• She’s good at getting her ideas across.• I don’t get your meaning.

• Even many beginning linguistics texts have some version of this view.


• It turns out that the encoding view of language is simply a metaphor.• What really happens is much more

complicated, ...• ... and it crucially depends on shared

knowledge.


• Excerpt from a column by Dave Barry, Sunday, July 17, 1994 Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph

As executive director of the Bureau of Consumer Alarm, I am always on the alert for news stories that involve two key elements:

1. Fire

2. Barbie


So I was very interested when alert reader Michael Robinson sent me a column titled “Ask Jack Sunn” from the Dec. 13, 1993, issue of the Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger.

Here’s an excerpt from a consumer’s letter to this column, which I am not making up:


“Last year, my two daughters received presents of two Rollerblade Barbie dolls by Mattel. On March 8, my 8-year-old daughter was playing beauty shop with her 4-year-old brother.

After spraying him with hair spray, the children began to play with the boot to Rollerblade Barbie. My little girl innocently ran the skate across her brother’s bottom, which immediately ignited his clothes.”


The letter adds that “There are no warnings concerning fire on these toys ... I feel the need to warn potential buyers of their danger.”

In his response, Jack Sunn says, cryptically, that “Mattel does not manufacture Rollerblade Barbie any more.”

He does not address the critical question that the consumer’s letter raised in my mind, as I’m sure it did yours, namely: Huh?


I realized that the only way to answer this question was to conduct a scientific experiment. ...

The problem was that I did not have a Rollerblade Barbie.


• The segue from scientific experiment to I did not have a Rollerblade Barbie seems completely natural.• But what if I ask you to explain WHY it’s

natural.• What information do you have to appeal to,

even though it is unstated?

Frames

• What is an experiment?

• What does performing an experiment entail?

• The complex conceptual structures evoked by terms like experiment are called FRAMES.

• Do not confuse the technical term frame, a potentially quite complex cognitive entity, with the general use of the term as in ...• This is how he framed the discussion.

Frames

• Much of the way we communicate involves referencing frames.• Frames often entail cultural or technical

knowledge.• restaurant• bus• commercial transaction

• Frames allow us kinds of “shorthand”.• Make conventional mention of a frame and all

the parts become “available”.

Frames

• What things are needed for Dave Barry’s experiment?• clothes• hairspray• Rollerblade Barbie

• There is a reasonable expectation that he will have access to clothes and hairspray, ...... but not to a Rollerblade Barbie.• Hence he gets to go directly from experiment to

Rollerblade Barbie. (http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~hansell/humor/

rollerblade.barbie)

Scripts

• Most social actions are structured into “scripts”:• Simple friendly encounter

• greeting, niceties, discussion, leave taking

Meeting call to order, approval of agenda, minutes, old

business, new business, adjourn.

Commercial interaction request to purchase, agreement on price, payment,

transfer of ownership

(Term SCRIPT due to Schank and Abelson 1975, cf. Pike 1967) Scripts are parts of frames.

Many scripts have linguistic and non-linguistic parts.

Scripts


• greeting, niceties, discussion, leave taking• Meeting

• call to order, approval of agenda, minutes, old business, new business, adjourn.

Commercial interaction request to purchase, agreement on price, payment,




Scripts




• Commercial interaction• request to purchase, agreement on price, payment,




Scripts




• Commercial interaction• request to purchase, agreement on price, payment,

transfer of ownership• (Term SCRIPT due to Schank and Abelson 1975, cf.

Pike 1967)• Scripts are parts of frames.

• Many scripts have linguistic and non-linguistic parts.

Scripts

• Example of a “script”.

QuickTime™ and aH.264 decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Scripts

• Example of a commercial transaction.• Non-linguistic Girl takes candy to the cashier.

• opening gambit of communicative encounter• Non-linguistic Girl places candy on the counter. • Cashier: “That it?” [ðæˈɪt31] (almost inaudible)• Girl: “Yep.”• Non-linguistic Cashier scans package. • Cashier: “99 cents.”• Non-linguistic Girl pays. • Non-linguistic Cashier gives change.

• closing gambit of communicative encounter• Cashier: “Thank you.”• Girl: “Thank you.”• Cashier: “Ya wanna bag or a receipt?”• Girl: “No.” (laughs)

Cooperation

• Communication is crucially cooperative. (Grice)

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Cooperation

• Language is underspecified relative to speaker’s intent.• Language is largely approximate.

•Speakers frequently make mistakes but hearers perceive intent.

• From Crosscurrents (KALW radio, Aug. 15, 2011)

•SHANKS: Here you can see on the Bay Bridge Project, one of our students that graduated out of the program seven years ago was deigned a superstar of the whole project... [sic]

•corrected in the transcript to: deemed

Cooperation

• Hearers are expected to contribute to figuring out speakers’ intents.• Context provides much of the necessary

information.• Shared norms are crucially important. (implicit in

Grice)

• In writer’s terms this is judging the audience.• Reading is active, not passive.• Readers bring their frames to the table.

Cooperation

• It is the job of the writer to activate the appropriate frames in the reader and build new ones.

• Success as a writer entails doing this intuitively.

• I hope that this talk has helped bring some of those intuitions to a more conscious level.

The End

Finis

Postmodernism

• However, ...

• In some kinds of monologic texts, particularly literary texts, the degree of success of the communication is less critical.•Misreading Dante has far less serious

consequences than misreading DANGER – HIGH VOLTAGE

•OK, so you might get D in Prof. Botterill’s class but ...•... you won’t end up in the hospital or worse.

Postmodernism

• Postmodernists reject the relevance theory view of successful communication.• Postmodernists take an extreme relativist position:

• Texts are essentially ambiguous.• The text means whatever it means to the reader.

• The fact that postmodernism grew out of literary criticism, means it isn’t immediately obvious that it has problems.• The meanings examined in literary criticism are second and

third order meanings.• Ironically, many postmodernists see themselves involved in

a larger dialogue intended to renegotiate the structure of society.• This is relational communication, which requires interlocutors

to understand one another’s intents.• Postmodernism is incoherent even for the kind of enterprise

they are pursuing.

Cherokee

• Cherokee is one of over 700 Native American languages once spoken in North America at the time of first contact.

• It belongs to the Iroquoian family• ... which includes: Mohawk, Seneca,

Oneida, among others.

Language Families Iroquoian

is one of 50

Language

Familiesin

NorthAmerica

Writing, the Cherokee Syllabary, and the nature of Language

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