ICT has two articles on Ellen Cushman’s new book, The Cherokee Syllabary: Writing the People’s Perseverance.

Here is the interview with the author, and here is the review of the book.

Cushman, a Cherokee Nation citizen, writes in her preface about the questions generated by a poster of the Cherokee syllabary chart that hangs in her office. Visitors ask, “Why so many characters? How is this learned? Why these shapes? Where can I find samples of writing in Sequoyan? Is it even still used? What does it all mean?”

Cushman, wondering herself, set out to answer these and other queries. Her first few chapters detail the story of Sequoyah and how the writing system evolved from handwritten script to the printing press. Then the author delves into the deeper meaning of the syllabary itself. In theorizing about how the original handwritten script may have had many linguistic meanings built into its very shapes, she actually strips down the syllables digitally to their core shapes and creates a table comparing them. All this makes for a fascinating discussion.

The narrative then flows into how the script was later adapted to the printing press. Cushman notes that despite the influence of missionary groups, the final product was not informed by the English alphabet, even though some Cherokee syllables ended up resembling English alphabetic shapes. It was a Cherokee product from start to finish.