Cherokee Language ~ Lesson 1 Basic Cherokee Welcome.

Here you can learn some basic Cherokee phrases and words. First you will need to know the vowel pronounciation. Vowel Pronounciation Table. (a) - Same as (a) in father. (e) - Same as (a) in hate. (i) - Same as (i) in pigue or pit (o) - Same as (o) in note approaching (aw) in law (u) - same as (oo) in fool or short as in pull (v) - as (u) in but, nasilized h,k,l,m,n,g,s,t,w,y same as in English (g) nearly as in English but approaching (k) Basic Cherokee ~ Lesson 2. Before We Start Here are a few symbols that effect how words are pronounced. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (') means syllable is accented. (?) between syllable indicates glottel stop (as in o.k.) (:) means vowel is held longer. (*) pronounce carefully- can change meaning of the word. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lesson 2. Basic Greeting. 1st Person o si yo (hello) Dto hi tsu (how are you?) 2nd Person o s da (fine) ni hi na (and you?) 1st Person o s da dv (fine) 2nd Person Ho Wa (alright!) Basic Cherokee ~ Lesson 3. Lesson 2~ Fill in the blanks. Fill in the Cherokee words for numbers 1-6 1st person

Hello (1)____________ How are you? (2)____________ 2nd Person Fine (3)_____________ And you? (4)________________ 1st Person Fine (5)_____________ (remember, replying to 2nd person) 2nd Person Alright! (6)____________ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ Check your Answers Here are the answers for 1-6 (1) o si yo (2)do hi tsu (3)o s da (4)ni hi na (5)o s da dv (6)ho wa Goto Lesson 3. Forming A Question In Cherokee Using Question Words (ga)do yusdi hia? What is this? kago iyusdi asgaya? Who is this man? "dog" do adti? How do you say "dog"? kagiyusdi gawoniha? Who is it speaking? hvgaiga tsaduliha? How much do you want? do iyusdi uduliha? Which does he want? gatsv hwigti? Where are you going? hadlv hehi? Where do you live? Using Question Suffixes tsalagisgo hiwoniha? Do you speak Cherokee? hias? Is this it? This one? osigwotsu? How are you? gilisgo hia? Is this a dog?

wagas hawiya hia? Is this beef? sdadulihasgo gadu? Do you two want bread? hiasgo gasgilo? Is this a chair? osisgo nitsiwi? Did I say it right? unegvge? Is it white? golgas tsalagi? Does he understand Cherokee? Vocabulary asgaya - a man hia - this waga hawiya - beef uduliha - s/he wants it tsaduliha - you (singular) want it gadu - bread gasgilo - a chair hwigti - you (singular) are going (away from speaker) hehi - you (singular) live osi - good, right nitsiwi - I said it Cherokee syllabary

Cherokee pronunciation Cherokee pronunciation

Notes The consonants g and d are voiceless in certain positions and in some dialects. In the Otali (Oklahoma) dialect, a is often realised as //; ts can be pronounced //, //, /s /,// or //; and w is pronounced //. The Otali dialect has six tones, while the Quallah (Eastern) dialect usually (at most) only bears a pitch accent. Notes provided by Eric "" Englert You can hear the sounds of Cherokee at:

http://www.cherokee.org/Extras/Downloads/syllabary.html Sample text in Cherokee Sample text in Cherokee

The importance of learning the Cherokee Syllabary: The majority of Cherokee Language documents are composed in the Cherokee Syllabary. [ Wikipedia for Example]. In addition, if you wish to communicate with someone via written or electronic means the majority of Cherokee Speakers will be expecting you to use the Cherokee Syllabary. And contrary to popular belief, learning the Cherokee Syllabary is not that difficult, if the right technique is used. The importance in writing to learn the Cherokee Syllabary. The best way to learn any writing system is by writing it. Not with flash cards. Now, don't get me wrong, flash cards can be very useful in learning to read the Cherokee Syllabary and is extremely important when learning Cherokee Language Vocabulary, but, you will not be very good at it, unless you learn to write it. The physical act of writing each Cherokee Syllabary Letter immediately after saying what letter you are going to write will dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to learn the Cherokee Syllabary. Dull repetition is not the answer. With the need for the physical act of writing clearly stated for you to be able to properly learn the Cherokee Syllabary, simply starting out by writing '', '', ', '', '', '', '' over and over will not work. Your brain and hand and arm will quickly become numb to the information you are trying to learn and you will encounter great difficulty going beyond 8 or so letters. Instead what we need to do is write the different letters out in such a pattern so that your brain does not quickly become numb to what we are trying to learn, giving us the ability to learn all 85 letters in very short order. Graduated Interval Recall is the answer. Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Graduated-interval recall is a specific method of spaced repetition, published by Paul Pimsleur in 1967. It is particularly suited to programmed audio instruction due to the very short times (measured in seconds or minutes) between the first few repetitions, unlike other forms of spaced repetition which may not require such precise timings. Graduated Interval Recall is a complex name for a very simple theory about memory. No aspect of learning a foreign language is more important than memory, yet before Dr. Pimsleur's work, no one had explored more effective ways for building language memory. In his research, Dr. Pimsleur discovered how long students remembered new information and at what intervals they needed to be reminded of it. If reminded too soon or too late, they failed to retain the information. How Graduated Interval Recall fits in.

After studying Dr. Pimsleur's Graduated Interval Recall methodology, I created special audio files for different groupings of the Cherokee Syllabary letters that dictate when I should write each letter. I did this after failing miserably in trying to learn the Cherokee Syllabary in a timely fashion using simple repetition. After doing this, I was able to finish learning the Cherokee Syllabary in a day and a half. I also know from experience that if I don't exercise this knowledge, losing it, that I can redo a much briefer version of the initial exercise and regain the lost knowledge in very short order. This was not possible for me before creating these special audio sets. The results of my efforts are posted here for use by others in the hopes that others who are also having difficulty will instead experience ease of learning and the joy that the writing as well as reading the Cherokee Syllabary will bring. Each exercise set plays for about 22-25 minutes. This should be short enough to allow even a busy individual to do at least one exercise per day. There also is nothing dictating that you limit yourself to only one exercise per day. Cherokee Language Lessons - Free to Copy and Use All material here is free to copy and use under the Creative Commons AttributionShare Alike 3.0 United States License. Under the following conditions: Attribution You must maintain the list of authors and contributers intact. You may not imply that any contributer or author endorses you or your use of the work. Share Alike If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bysa/3.0/us/ .

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