Re: Cherokee language
Osiyo - Hello,
Saw this post, and I just had to reply even though it's a year late. Just wanted to offer up some resources on Cherokee language available in terms of both self-reference material and classes so those interested can have an idea of where to start when it comes to Cherokee.
Materials:
Unfortunately, there aren't many pedagogical materials available, and from what's available, only one that I know of is still in print. What is out there is of the "self reference" category (dictionaries, word lists, grammar materials, etc.). On the pedagogical end, there's basically BEGINNING CHEROKEE by Ruth Holmes and Betty Smith which is a textbook that offers lessons on vocabulary, verbs, phrases/concepts, and the Syllabary. It has the added bonus of having an audio tape/cd that can be purchased with it so you can actually hear the words. A few other materials in this category have popped up recently, but I've not looked at them personally so I can't offer any thoughts about them other than that they are there. These are mostly "topic" based materials such as "Parenting Phrases in Cherokee" and "How to Talk Trash in Cherokee." Various Indian People's Publishing sells these, and they may even be the makes/copyright holders. I'm not sure.
In terms of the Self-Reference materials, there's a lot more out there. The best resource I'd recommend is the CHEROKEE-ENGLISH DICTIONARY by Durbin Feeling in collaboration with William Pulte. First published in the mid-1970s, this works is still, for me, the gold standard. Although it lacks audio, it does provide an extensive list of verbs (many of which one can't find given anywhere else) that are conjugated in a specific range of forms. These forms are provided with tonal markings as well so one can at least "ballpark" the pronunciation on all of them. It also has a brief grammatical sketch on some very important aspects related to the language. The difficult of the Dictionary is that it doesn't quite explain how you can manipulate the given forms to create the meaning one wants. The catch is that the forms they identified ARE the forms you can use to conjugate the given verbs into ANY of the tenses you'd ever need or want to say.
Cherokee Nation owns the rights to the dictionary, and I think it'd be good if they released a second edition that had that kind of outline.
Durbin has lots of other materials that are useful, if somewhat limited, and worse, almost all of these are out of print. He has a "A Structured Approach to Learning the Basic Inflections of the Cherokee Verb" (good for learning those tricky classification verbs), "A Preliminary Handbook on the Cherokee Verb" which has about a thousand co-authors (this one may still be in print, and I've seen it offered at the Cherokee Heritage Center in Tahlequah.
Prentice Robinson is another name most are probably familiar with as well. He's been publishing Cherokee language materials for decades now. He has a pretty good EASY TO USE CHEROKEE DICTIONARY that's in print (the issue being that it does not provide any kind of guidance on how to actually use any of the listed forms, an important component when working in Cherokee or any language). Rather than list all of this stuff, it'd be just as easy to search him on the web. I'm sure there'd be lots of places that offered what he' published for sale. Most of his newer stuff also has audio with it as well which makes them even more useful.
Maybe the best resource in terms of new stuff would be the Cherokee Nation. They started an Immersion School for children a few years back, and as part of that process, they established a Curriculum Department that has been steadily producing language materials for a few years now. They have curriculum for Kindergarten through Second Grade (note that all of this stuff is in the Syllabary, and it's intended for the students at the school, and there's no audio that goes with it). Of more interest are the various DVD's I've seen that they've put out - They have animated story books, a short animated story ("The Beginning They Told"), and probably some other stuff I don't even know about.
For Grammar Geeks, there's lots of linguistic stuff out there, but most of those materials are unpublished dissertations. A new and really good one, though, is "A Reference Grammar of Cherokee" by Brad Montgomery-Anderson which he just did last year. Janine Scancarelli did a wonderful dissertation as well back in the 1980s (or it may have been in the 1990s, can't quite remember) called "Grammatical Relations and Verb Agreement in Cherokee." Pamela Munro edited a series of student linguist papers out of UCLA (gah, can't remember the title offhand, something like "Cherokee Papers from UCLA" or the like).
As for classes, I know that Cherokee Nation and the United Keetoowah Band both offer Community Classes on a regular basis. I don't know, though, what's going on right now nor what's on schedule for the coming year. But I'm sure if you contacted them, they'd have that info. Cherokee Nation also offers an online course as well.
Tulsa Community College, Rogers State College, and if I heard correctly, Bacone will be offering Cherokee language courses in the Fall and Spring Semesters. Northeastern State University has actually started a Cherokee Education Degree that features a wide range of Cherokee language classes. And in North Carolina, Western Carolina University has a Cherokee Language Program as well (though they apparently don't offer many language classes at this point since the program is still being developed).
Anyway, I know there's lots more out there that I'm just not able to think of at this point. Good luck, and if there's more info someone's looking for, I may not know it, but I probably know those who do. Just ask, I'd be happy to provide what information I can.
FYI: I've been working on relearning Cherokee now for about seven years so I can appreciate, and am very supportive of, anyone willing to take the time to learn Cherokee.
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