Book Review: Cherokee Words with Pictures

Title: Cherokee Words with Pictures

(Yes, that's the source of Yona's screen name.)

Author: Mary Ulmer and Goingback Chiltoskey

Date: 1972

Publisher: Eastern Cherokee reservation in North Carolina

ISBN: none

Length: 56 pages

Illustrations: drawings and one-color photographs

Quote: “This is...for those who are interested in the Cherokee language.”

As of 1972 the Cherokee language was still predominantly oral, and endangered. It has its own phonetic writing system but is not fully standardized. In words and names like Godagewi, what I typed into Yahoo as G and D sounds may come out closer to K and T sounds, and Cherokees have traditionally used the characters that go with either sound (in various combinations) to write the name in Cherokee, as well as using different phonetic systems to write “Kotagewi” or “Go-di-ke-wee” or similar things in English. Mary Ulmer Chiltoskey, a native speaker of English, and her husband Goingback Chiltoskey, his brother Watty Chiltoskie, and their friend Will West Long, had compiled enough lists of words to put together this first dictionary of Cherokee.

The result was a paperback picture book that can be shoved into a trench coat pocket. Word lists are even further from allowing a person to speak Cherokee than similar word lists would be for allowing an English-speaking person to speak Spanish; a lot of people who recognize these words don’t actually speak Cherokee at all because, even when speaking about these things, a native speaker would not necessarily use the same words. And these word lists aren’t even close to a complete dictionary; well, obviously, in 56 pages...

Even very simple nouns and verbs that go with pictures don’t necessarily translate each other completely when languages are as different as Cherokee is from English. Galegi, or Gulegi, or Kulegi, means “a black snake” but it does not also mean “black,” nor does it also mean “snake.” (On these word lists “snake” is translated by inadv and “black” by gvnagei). Gulegi also means “living creature climbs.” The black rat snake was seen as different from ordinary snakes not because of its size or color, and not because it’s the only snake that climbs walls and trees, but because it was the kind of snake people most often noticed climbing walls and trees; the snake that climbs—often. The black racer snake is adogiyasgi inedv. (In the most direct system of phonetic transcription, V is a vowel representing the “uh” sound in words like Nolitsvgi/Nolichucky.) “My grandmother” is translatable by the same word (elisi) as “a grandmother,” but “my son” (atsutsa, also used to translate “boy”) is a separate word from “a son” (uwetsidvhi).

So this was a preliminary study. More formal written studies of the Cherokee language are still being conducted among those who speak the language fluently, who are a minority even on the reservations. This is a word list, marketed more to children (during the fad for “Western” movies and “playing Indians”) than even to grown-up tourists; it contains more words from old stories than words you’d use in an actual conversation. “Anvil” is on the list (asodi talugisgi uligi) but “any,” “ants,” and “anchor” are not; “hog sucker fish” (daloge) and “bass fish” (unoga) are on the list, as are “fish” (atsadi) and “minnow” (literally “little fish,” usdi atsadi),  but “sunfish,” “catfish,” “trout,” and of course the names of the sea fish people eat nowadays, are not.

“Internet connection”? Hah. Even “automobile” would not be translated by a real Cherokee word and, although it would be interesting to know whether native speakers use a Cherokee phrase or some phonetic word like motoka to refer to an object that is familiar to most Cherokees, this book doesn’t say.

The first thing I remember noticing, at age eleven, about the Cherokee language is that it’s written as a sequence of a limited number of syllables. Sequoyah made a distinction between the syllables ga and ka, but used only G spellings for ge, gi, go, gu, gv, although many people hear sounds like “ki” and “ku” in spoken Cherokee. Sequoyah also used only L spellings for la, le, li, lo, lu, lv and only TS spellings for tsa, tse, tsi, tso, tsu, txv, thus simplifying the spelling of words in which the sounds may seem closer to R’s or CH’s. As a result, in order to spell “Cherokee” in Cherokee, you have to use the characters representing Tsalagi. It’s possible to use Cherokee characters to write English words, but it takes creativity. Even to write Cherokee words takes some ingenuity.

So, maybe there’s a language somewhere that people have been actually speaking for any amount of time, that’s not a mess? The illusion of tidiness about Latin comes from the fact that nobody’s spoken Latin as a native language for at least 1500 years, and on closer examination it becomes obvious that, while Latin was being spoken, it was messy too.

Anyway, studying this little book can be regarded as preparation for classes in spoken Cherokee, which are occasionally offered to visitors at the reservation, and probably everyone who’s cherished a copy intends, if and when we can save up the money, to take a Cherokee Language Immersion class some day.

All people of Cherokee descent should have this book. Properly it should be bought at the reservation, but since copies are sold on Amazon, this web site might as well offer that option too. Right. For a gently used copy, send $5 per book and $5 per package to the post office box shown below, or that amount plus $1 for online payment to the Paypal address you get by e-mailing SaloliAniGodagewi. Mary Ulmer Chiltoskey, who autographed my copy in English, no longer has any use for a dollar but the people offering those Language Immersion classes do. So, Cherokee Words and Pictures is not a Fair Trade Book, but we'll handle payments as if it were one if you buy it from this web site, because that's the least we can do.