The Cherokee Language

A bit about sandwiches:

As most of us have probably recognized in our lives, the English language is ripe with opportunities for miscommunication. If you are sitting at a table during lunch break you might say, “A sandwich would be so awesome right now.” Now, if another person sitting at the table is eating a sandwich they may wonder if you simply like sandwiches or if you are fishing around for an invitation to share their sandwich. Depending on the relationship between you and that other person they may decide you are simply commenting on the greatness of sandwiches and simply finish their lunch and go on about their day. However, if you were actually trying to get a bite of their sandwich you would likely feel slightly annoyed because they didn't offer. However, you didn't actually ask for some of their sandwich because you were counting on the other person to pick up on your language cues so that you wouldn't have to go through the social awkwardness of actually asking for some sandwich. Now, although this is a simple example of a miscommunication, they can be found in all aspects of our lives where language is involved.

You might be wondering why I’m writing about sandwiches in a blog about the Cherokee language but don’t worry, I’m getting there. If the same situation described above were to take place between speakers of the Cherokee language the miscommunication that I spoke of would not actually be possible. Here’s why: In Cherokee each thing has its own word. If you wanted a bite of sandwich you would have to actually say, “Your ham and cheese sandwich would be awesome right now; I would like for you to feed me because I see that you are able to do so,” thus communicating your interest in eating the exact sandwich that the other person is eating. It isn’t just that you would choose to say it this way either. This would actually be the only way to communicate what you are thinking because if you didn’t want some of the other person’s sandwich you would use a completely different set of words which would be something like this, “I would like to eat a ham and cheese sandwich. I will get one for myself.” Whatever you are trying to say in Cherokee, you must actually say it.

As you can imagine, a language where everything is extremely specific can be difficult to learn. The number of fluent Cherokee speakers within the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is low with most of the fluent speakers belonging to the over 50 population. Concern over the dwindling number of fluent speakers has led to the formation of the New Kituwah Academy (sounds like “new gah-do-wah”). The Academy is a Cherokee language immersion school, meaning that Cherokee is the only language spoken within the school. This is done in order to allow students to learn the language naturally—through listening and repeating—just like we all learn our first language. The school currently operates on two levels with programs for infants through pre-school age children and  K-5 age children. The school has been open for seven years and the upcoming year will be the first time that the school will have a 5^th grade class.

I spent some time at the Academy last week and was fortunate enough to be able to have an in-depth conversation with one of the teachers at the school. The woman that I spoke with comes from a family where her grandparents were fluent speakers. However, her mother was not raised speaking the language and so she picked up some things from her grandparents over the years but not enough to speak fluently. She spoke of feeling drawn to becoming a fluent speaker because she did not want the language of her heritage to die within her family. Although she is still not a completely fluent speaker her knowledge has grown tremendously and she is honored to be able to work in a school where she can share that part of her Cherokee heritage with the children of her community.

Teaching Cherokee, even in a community of Cherokee people, does not come without challenges, however. The biggest challenge is that everything must be made from scratch or translated. The teacher I spoke with is a math teacher so many of the worksheets that she discovers online must be translated before she can use them which means, essentially, she must prepare every assignment twice. In addition, the Cherokee language doesn't include some math vocabulary words like parallelogram so these words must be translated as they sound. Many of these words become very long when they are translated, making the young children wary of attempting to use them. Because Cherokee is not their first language and because Cherokee is difficult to learn many of the young children have difficulty staying in the Cherokee speaking mode. They know the word or phrase in English and see that it is often easier for them to give up and use English rather than Cherokee. Keeping children interested in and aware that they are preserving and promoting their culture seems to be the key to helping them to learn Cherokee.