The Cherokees have the oldest and best-known Native American writing system in the United States. Invented by Sequoyah and made public in 1821, it was rapidly adopted, leading to nineteenth-century Cherokee literacy rates as high as 90 percent. This writing system, the Cherokee syllabary, is fully explained and used throughout this volume, the first and only complete published grammar of the Cherokee language. Learn more.
The world's linguistic diversity is diminishing, with more than two hundred languages declared extinct and thousands more endangered. As these languages disappear, deep stores of knowledge and cultural memory are also lost. The scholarly significance of these endangered and extinct languages and literacies provides the impetus for this collaborative initiative supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
