Cherokee (language)

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Cherokee ( ᏣᎳᎩ Tsalagi )

Spoken in

United States
speaker approx. 20,000
Linguistic
classification
Language codes
ISO 639 -1

-

ISO 639 -2

chr

ISO 639-3

chr

Originally the Cherokee settlement before the displacement of the 19th century. Today about half of the speakers live in Oklahoma .
Cherokee lettering over a church in Adams Corner

Cherokee ( ᏣᎳᎩ Tsalagi or ᏣᎳᎩ ᎦᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ Tsalagi Gawonihisdi ) is the language of the Cherokee people and is still spoken by up to 22,000 people. Cherokee belongs to the Iroquois language family and remains the only language of the South Iroquois group that is still spoken. The original name of this language was Aniyunwiya , today's name Tsalagi was derived from the English term Cherokee , which in turn meant 'Iroquois', 'Iroquois'.

Dialects

The Cherokee ( ᏣᎳᎩ ᎦᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ Tsalagi Gawonihisdi ) originally consisted of three regional dialects (another fourth dialect developed during the reservation period) and today has around 12,000 speakers.

  • Elati dialect or Lower (Towns) dialect , also: Eastern dialect (dialect of the Lower Towns in the border area of South Carolina and Georgia , only "R" + "ts" dialect: Tsa-ra-gi, approx. 1900 †)
  • Kituwah / Giduwah dialect or Middle (Towns) dialect (dialect of the Middle Towns and Out Towns in North Carolina , "L" + "tl" or "dl" dialect: Tla-la-gi or Dla-la-gi , approx. 1,000 speakers)
  • Otali / Atali dialect or Overhill (Towns) dialect , also: Upper or Western dialect (dialect of the Overhill Towns in Tennessee and the Valley Towns in North Carolina and later the Five Lower Towns of the so-called Chickamauga Cherokee (Lower Cherokee), " L "+" ts ": Tsa-la-gi, approx. 9,000 to 11,000 speakers)
  • Overhill Middle Dialect or Oklahoma Dialect (modern dialect variant that only emerged during the reservation time)

Phonology

Consonants

Like all Iroquois languages, Cherokee originally had no labial consonants ( b, p, m ). By shifting sounds from w and foreign words, an m is now available. p is mostly replaced by qu . Therefore, Wikipedia on Cherokee is called Wikiquediya .

The consonant inventory of the Cherokee of North Carolina can be described as follows:

labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Plosive ​t​ ​k​ ​ʔ​
Affrict ​ts​
Fricative ​s​ ​H​
nasal ​m​ ​n​
Approximant ​l​ ​j​ (y) ​ɰ​ (w)

Vowels

Cherokee has six vowels : a, e, i, o, u and a nasal vowel that sounds like French un and is mostly written as v in Latin script. This vowel is found in all Iroquois languages. All vowels can be short or long:

Front Central Back
Closed ​i ​   iː ​u ​   uː
medium ​e ​   eː ə̃   ə̃ː ​o ​   oː
Open ​a ​   aː

At diphthongs there except in foreign words only one: ai .

Emphasis

Cherokee is a tonal language with six tones: high, low, rising, falling, high and falling, low and falling. However, it is only in very rare cases that the wrong tone results in a different word meaning. In addition, the writing does not mark the tones, and they are usually left out in Latin transliteration as well. In many areas the sound system is simplified, especially if pronounced carelessly, while other speakers, especially older ones, consciously stick to it.

grammar

Like many Indian languages , Cherokee is polysynthetic . This means that many morphemes can be packed into a single word, which can be very long. The verbs of the Cherokee may be the most important part of speech much more information included as German words. They not only include the subject ( I, you, ... ), but also the object ( me, you, ... ) and partly its nature (see below). A verb must have at least four parts: the prefix for the pronoun , the verb stem, a suffix for the aspect, and a suffix for the mode. The verb form gga 'I'm going (straight)' consists of the following elements:

verb form gega
G- e -G -a
PRONOM PREFERRED "I" VERBSTAMM "go" ASPECT SEND "Present" MODE SEND "currently"

Like many languages ​​(e.g. Turkish ), Cherokee does not distinguish between “he”, “she” and “it”. Instead, it knows a dual (two-number) like Slovenian , and like Tagalog and Tamil an inclusive and an exclusive we . This can be seen in the conjugation of the verb -e- in the present tense:

Present tense of the verb -e- ' to go'
Singular Dual inclusive Dual exclusive Plural inclusive Plural exclusive
1st person ᎨᎦ gega
, I go '		 ᎢᏁᎦ inega
'we both go (you and me)'		 ᎣᏍᏕᎦ osdega
'we both go (but you don't)'		 ᎢᏕᎦ idega
'we (3 and more) go (and you too)'		 ᎣᏤᎦ 'otsega' '
we (3 and more) go (but you don't)'
2nd person ᎮᎦ hega
'you go'		 ᏍᏕᎦ sdega
'you two go'		 ᎢᏤᎦ itsega
'you go'
3rd person ᎡᎦ ega
'he, she, it goes'		 ᎠᏁᎦ anega
'they go'

The tense used here is the progressive present tense (“I'm walking”). Cherokee differentiates even more strictly between progressive and habitual present tense (I go often / usually) than English. The forms of the habitual present for I go (usually) , you go (usually) , he, she, it goes (usually) are ᎨᎪᎢ Gegoi , ᎮᎪᎢ hegoi , ᎡᎪᎢ egoi .

Classifiers for personality in some verbs

About 20 Cherokee verbs require special syllables that qualify the direct object according to its nature. These include the verbs for “pick up”, “put down”, “take away”, “wash”, “hide”, “eat”, “pull”, “have”, “hold”, “put in water”, “on fire” place ”and“ are ”. The classifiers can be divided into five categories:

  1. Lively
  2. Flexible (most common)
  3. Long (narrow, not flexible)
  4. Liquid (or container)
  5. Indefinite (firm, relatively difficult)

Example:

Conjugation of "Give him ..."
Type of classifier Cherokee translation
Lively ᎯᎧᏏ hikasi Give him (something alive)
Flexible ᎯᏅᏏ hinvsi Give him (something like clothes or a rope)
Long and firm ᎯᏗᏏ hidisi Give him (something like a broom or pen)
Liquid ᎯᏁᎥᏏ gehvsi Give him (something like water)
Indefinite ᎯᎥᏏ hivsi Give him (something like food or a book)

There are reports that the youngest Cherokee speakers are only using the indefinite forms and the classification system is beginning to disappear.

Word order

Simple statements follow a word order of subject-object-verb (SOV). Negative sentences have a different position. Adjectives come before nouns. If you follow it, form a sentence with “is” (the word “is” is unnecessary): ᎠᎩᏙᏓ ᎤᏔᎾ agidoga utana , German , “my father is great” . Demonstrative pronouns are at the beginning of a noun phrase: Ꮎ ᎠᏍᎦᏯ ᎠᎩᏙᏓ na asgaya agidoda , German 'this man is my father'

font

Cherokee is written in its own syllabary developed by the Indian Sequoyah . Some syllables are similar to Latin, Greek or Cyrillic letters or Arabic numerals, but have a completely different sound value.

Web links

Wikipedia on Cherokee

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chickamauga Cherokee (PDF)