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Sequoyah and the Cherokee Writing System

In 1821 Sequoyah completed the development of a Cherokee writing system. Each character represents a syllable, instead of one sound as when one writes English, so it’s called a syllabary. There are eighty-five characters in the writing system and these were cast into metal for printing. A Cherokee dictionary was produced in the mid-1970s, one hundred and fifty years after the first editors and printers of the Cherokee Phoenix came to New Echota to print the first Native American newspaper. Some say Sequoyah was illiterate, but how can you be illiterate if you’re the person who developed your own system of writing? Some say the writing system, or portions of it, may have existed even before Sequoyah.

ARTWORK: SPEAKEASY PRESS (DESIGN: FRANK BRANNON; ILLUSTRATION: LUZENE HILL; TRANSLATION: LAURA PINNIX)