Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind

Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications

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TRE ALPHABET speaking an Iroquois language. They lived formerly in northern Georgia and North Carolina (U.S.A.), but were moved to Indian territory in 1838-39.
The Cherokee script was invented in 1821 by a native called Sequova or Sikwaya, also John Gist or Guest or Guess. He seems to have been uneducated but intelligent. At any rate, he understood the advantages which writing could bring to his people. At first he created an ideographic script, but soon realized how cumbersome it was and invented the syllabary. After about ten years, this script was so widespread that nearly all the male members of the tribe could write and read and many Cherokee manuscripts are extant. Nowadays, however, the script has fallen into disuse.
The Cherokee syllabary consists of eighty-five signs (Fig. 91), which can be divided into four groups: (1) symbols derived from Latin characters, either capitals or small letters, but with entirely different values; (2) Roman letters inverted or otherwise transformed (for instan by the addition of strokes), likewise with different values; (3) European numeral signs (used in the same way as Latin letters); and (4) arbitrary characters.
On the whole, the system is characterized by a superabundance of consonants and consonant-clusters, combined with a great variability of vowels. It is, however, scientifically sound and proved very easy to learn.
Origin
The origin of this syllabary is one of the best historic examples of the creation of a system of writing. Some scholars suggest that Sequoya's knowledge of the English alphabet was deficient, and consider this to be the reason why the phonetic values of his signs differ from those of the Roman letters. This explanation, however, seems at fault. The fact that there is no single case of a Cherokee symbol retaining the original phonetic value, i.e., that of the Latin letters, is in my opinion the clearest proof that Sequoya's intention was to create a script quite different from the English alphabet, Further, the fact that Sequoya's syllabary represents Cherokee quite satisfactorily, proves that the creator of this script knew how to deal with the problems he had to face.
It is difficult to explain why Sequoya has replaced the Roman alphabetic system of writing with a syllabary. It has been suggested, perhaps rightly, that Sequoya did not grasp the principle of alphabetic writing, and was satisfied with breaking up the words into their constituent syllables. There is, however, also the possibility that Sequoya preferred the use of a syllabic system, which in itself is suitable to the Cherokee speech, though not so easily suitable for a language like English, which contains many accumulations of consonants.