Although some of the symbols used in the syllabary as it's written today are similar to the English alphabet, Traveler Bird claims this is only because they were "reworked" by white missionaries who wanted to cover up the fact that Native Americans could come up with the concept of writing on their own. According to Traveler Bird, Sequoyah didn't invent the syllabary he just passed on his society's specialized knowledge to the general Cherokee public. In 1971, Traveler Bird, one of Sogwali's descendents, published a book claiming that Sequoyah was not the creator of the Tsalagi alphabet, but actually the last surviving member of a clan of scribes that had passed on the written version of the language for generations. However, there is a competing version of the story. According to this generally accepted version of history, Sequoyah also acted as a diplomat for the Cherokees, signing treaties for them. He taught it first to his young daughter, then to as many Cherokee as were willing to learn it-eventually educating thousands of his people. Sequoyah invented the Tsalagi alphabet after seeing how white settlers were able to communicate in writing. Naturally, Sequoyah is the name that stuck in the historical record. The most commonly told story and the one with the most historical evidence to back it is that it was created around 1821 by a Cherokee Indian named George Guess or Gist, known as Sogwali in Cherokee and Sequoyah to white people who didn't bother to get the spelling of his name right. Currently, there are two stories of how the syllabary came to be invented. Written Cherokee, or Tsalagi as it's more properly called, has a full syllabary, a collection of symbols in which each symbol corresponds to a sound. The Cherokee language is unique among Native American languages in that it is both a written and spoken language. How did they manage to preserve their language? In spite of 100 years worth of efforts to stamp it out, there are still approximately 22,000 native Cherokee speakers alive today. In all likelihood, you are looking at signs written in the Cherokee language, a remarkable example of linguistic resilience. Passing through these areas, you may wonder what the symbols mean. In parts of the United States today, including Tennessee, North Carolina, and Oklahoma, road signs are marked with unfamiliar symbols that don't correspond to English letters.
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