Cherokee Syllabary - Later Developments

Later Developments

The syllabary achieved almost instantaneous popularity, and was adopted by the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper, later Cherokee Advocate, in 1828, followed by the Cherokee Messenger, a bilingual paper printed in syllabary in Indian Territory in the mid-19th century. It has been used since it was formed to write letters, keep diaries, and record medical formulas. The syllabary is still used today to transcribe recipes, religious lore, folktales, etc. In the 1960s, the Cherokee Phoenix Press published literature in the Cherokee syllabary, including the Cherokee Singing Book.

According to evidence as of 1980, the Cherokee language is still spoken both formally and informally by around 10,000 Western Cherokees. The language remains strong. A Cherokee syllabary typewriter ball was developed in the 1980s. Computer fonts greatly expanded Cherokee writers' ability to publish in Cherokee.

An increasing corpus of children's literature is printed in Cherokee syllabary today to meet the needs of Cherokee students in the Cherokee language immersion schools in Oklahoma and North Carolina. In 2010, a Cherokee keyboard cover was developed by Roy Boney, Jr. and Joseph Erb, facilitating more rapid typing in Cherokee and now used by students in the Cherokee Nation Immersion School, where all coursework is written in syllabary. The syllabary is finding increasingly diverse usage today, from books, newspapers, and websites to the street signs of Tahlequah, Oklahoma and Cherokee, North Carolina. In August 2010, the Oconaluftee Institute for Cultural Arts in Cherokee, North Carolina acquired a letterpress and had the Cherokee syllabary recast to begin printing one-of-a-kind fine art books and prints in syllabary.