Show the cherokee Alp ald alphabet babet i 1 I the following beet facts fuels relating to the invention on of ih the e C cherokee erolee al alphabet be it arc are taken fram th A amen men I 1 cn AI annals of education they were comeau oce of the cherokee nation gues guesses g what is generally tamed termed a hat braeg breed his father being u white man and his mother a cherokee he is isnow I 1 ilow flow about 72 aars of ua ape uge til ril ills hid natural appearance there is nothing very remarkable ar kable kabie about the middle size fair complexion add aud aad upon the whole a fine looking marl man possessed igi iii bf br an ingenious and vi vigorous 9 orous mind and was wag an excellent worker of sliver silver silvert 1 I speak of gim vim now as lie he was when idour in our nation though lie ne acquired the art entirely within himself ile he was more particularly famed for the tho beauty and neat neatness hiess fiess he manufactured silver spurs spars habad n fine fina talent and taste for painting but fort fori fondant want vant of proper culture aud and materials they were not allowed to 0 o expand he jio was a man of temperate and steady lia iia habits bits peaceable with ali all around him yet possessed somei somewhat hat of a morose disposition dispo ag 3 11 have learned from those who knew him better i i 1 7 1 I 1 hi his extraordinary invention for writing the Cb cherokee cherok erok language was made in 1821 ile ha was at the time not only perfectly unacquainted with letters but entirely so idith wi thany any other language than his liia own the Tha first or idea of nie ole practicability of such a project was received by looking at an un old piece of printed paper and reflecting ting cling upon the very singular manner to him bv which the he white people could place their thoughts upon paper aud and communicate them thern precisely ad as they existed to 0 o others at a distance A thou thought fht struck hini min that there most surely sorely b be some mode by which the ahe lii iii indians dials could do the he 3 sn pame and he lie set about the work of dis Ois discovery covery ha began bezan first by marking upon a erbb aby late slate aud and afterwards obtained paper he lle thus a single ond and distinct character fur for p each a ch word but soon fourd found the number so great 1 that I 1 it t wa wag was Impo impossible sible I 1 to retain thern them in memory III ili his q friends ridiculed the tho strange idea he hud had imbed of writing his language la in sorrie borrie some bome peculiar way unknown wn to educated men skilled in the literature of ages and in n striving to emulate a cadmus calmus but he was kasnot I 1 not to be dis funded and continued inflexible and nd persevering in the visionary scheme as all thought 11 I 1 thethis imagination bad had after several beveral mouths labor ho be succeeded in reducing ha Ms first plau plant so that in lieu of pf a separate character to denote ery every cry word boru in n the lanei nage naga he gave to e each a sill syllabic abic found pound and sad ascertained that there were but 86 variations of sounds in III the whole ian IaD language guage and when each of these was represented by some somme particular character or ietter letter the tha language was at once reduced to a system systems and the extraordinary extra mode of writing it now used crowned llis his labors with the most happy success iss considerable improvement has lias been made in ili regard to the formation of or the character characters in order hab hat they might be written with more facility and type typecast cast for the printing ofa ors of R caper paper ac ong olio of the characters was found to be superfluous and discarded reducing the number to 85 i the council of the nation were about making him hajman an appropriation of money on account of the invaluable service tendered by ele eie but were prevented by a a declaration on kiis this part that he would not accept of aay auy any A silver medal i however was voted and procured by the chero kee delegation in this city in 1824 18 24 the tiou I 1 do not recollect it has been much regretted that guess did not riot remain with tho the nation east of the mississippi and witness the advantages and blessings enjoyed by llis ills discovery H he e left the nation in 1824 and emigrated to the west ad sad was one of the del dei delegates mates eates who abed of 1823 1828 with the government in chist thiat city cily od ort behalf of the tha arkansas cherokees the knowledge of this thia mode roode of writing is easily acquired i an apt scholar one who understands the language langu agee can call learn to bead ix a day and indeed I 1 have known knowd circumstances where it has been learned ina lna in a single evening Iti it is only sonly ne necessary nes essary to leard learn the different sounds of the characters to be enabled to read at once in the tho english language wo we must not only first learn the letters but to tb spell before reading but in Cheroke cherokee 6 all that is required is to learn the tho letters for they have syllabic sounds and arid by connecting coni in different ones together a iv word ord is formed 1 in wh which ich there is no arl all who understand the language can do so and both read and write as soon as they can learn to trace with their fingers the form of the characters I 1 suppose that more than one half of the cherokees can read the irown language and are thereby enabled to acquire much value ble information with which they otherwise would never never have havle been blessed many portions of the scriptures have been translated and also hymns which have been printed by their own press the above I 1 have copied from the tile american magazine ragaz lue of Useful Knowledge printed and published by the boston bewick company in 1 1835 VI Y cl 2 mi the same system of ing lo 10 the individual sounds of of language a definite markis marklis now extensively used used in england arid slid america and is considered a mighty feat of or education but such a chimera vanishes since we are made aware that a cherokee Che indian entirely ignorant of the use of letters ag as far back as 1821 invented an alphabet on this principle which 1 is 14 now used by his nation by oy which persons of or common capacities can learn to read in a day or in a few hou bou hours rs this circumstance occurred long before writing in 4 the english language by sound was heard of by b y the learned world that many of the most ancient written languages and a great majority of the present written languages are ara based upon the tho same principle is well welt know to the educated bit what did indian guess know about this the same same principle of truth eternal truth was do no doubt discovered by the ancients in the same way guess discovered it and we do not know but all the credit is dum dun to this thir indian for first discovering in modern times that language is based j upon but a few elementary souil sounds bounds ds and that thai marks appropriated to such would supply the means meang of writing them in all their combinations to make words what a pity it Is that people are so wedded to their traditions as to cling to them with eager te tenacity even when it is self evident vi that they are not founded in the common sense of truth this is a mournful fact aike alke a ike with the tha hindmo and his hid avatars ava tars and the scholar and his english orthography with this difference the hindmo is not aware awara of his mistake the tile incarnations Incarnati one oue of the hindmo I 1 gods are very tery numerous bilt the inconsistencies of english orthography are infinite G D WATT |