Cherokee Syllabary

and Sound Chart

To hear the individual sounds of each syllable read off by my friend

Anna Huckaby click Seqouyah's syllabary below. This link will take

you to the Cherokee Nation downloads section then just simply click

on "Cherokee Syllabary & Sounds."

 

"Note that this syllabary does not include the nah sound. The reason this syllabary does not include the nah character is because the Cherokee Nation has created a standard Cherokee syllabary. This syllabary does not include this character because it is rarely used and is almost identical in pronunciation to the na (n) character which is shown before this letter."

"Cherokee Sound Chart"

Vowels:

A, as (a) in father

E, as (a) in hate, or short as (e) in met

I, as (i) in pique

O, as (o) in note

U, as (oo) in fool

V, as (u) in but

 

Consonants:

G is sounded hard, approaching to k; sometimes before e,i,o,u and v, its sound is k. D has a sound between the Englishd d and t; sometimes, before o,u and v, its sound is t; when written before l and s the same analogy prevails.

All other letters as in English.

Syllables beginning with g, except ga, have sometimes the power of k.

Syllables written with tl, except tla, sometimes vary to dl.