I think I’ve mentioned before that the kids and I are doing a two-year survey of the United States. For each state I have them fill in a blank map with some key features (cities, rivers, mountains) and we read a picture book or two that is set in that state.

For Tennessee we read Sequoyah: The Cherokee Man Who Gave His People Writing… and I was fascinated.

Sequoyah (also known as George Guess or Gist) was born in the 1760s. He was a Cherokee man who knew no English and couldn’t read, but when he was fifty he decided to invent writing for his people, so their voices would not fade away. Even though people jeered at him he began creating symbols for each word, scratching them into pieces of wood. When the mockers burned down his cabin, he began again, but this time he made symbols for syllables, about eighty-four altogether. The Cherokee people began to write to each other and in 1824 they gave Sequoyah a silver medal. A missionary helped him simplify the symbols so they could be printed with lead type.

The writing system that Sequoyah invented is called a syllabary. Japanese (along with a handful of other languages) also uses a syllabary rather than an alphabet.

James Rumford’s picture book tells what little we know about Sequoyah’s life in both English and Cherokee. It includes examples of the original characters and how they were changed. You can also see the complete syllabary and a brief timeline. I think you and your children/grandchildren will love to see what Cherokee looks like and to imagine what it would be like to create a system of writing from scratch.

Side note: Sequoia trees were named by Austrian botanist Stephen Endlicher, possibly after Sequoyah.