learn cherokee

I decided to start using flashcards to help me learn Cherokee, and I found a place on the internet that allowed me to make electronic flashcards for that purpose. However, without a paid account, I can’t print them out. I can use them and share them online however, and if I want an offline version- or a version with pictures (also requiring a paid account)- I can simply make them myself using some index cards. I’ve been caught up in school, groups, etc. so I haven’t given this the needed time, but I’ve still not given up on it and I’ve picked up some new words. I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but I purchased a book to help me learn Cherokee, as well. I’m also trying to learn the syllabary in Cherokee. So far, I know 11 of the symbols.

I keep saying, I’m slacking, I need to start back. Well, I still haven’t added anything new. I had other stuff on my mind and other stuff to do, but today I have been working on learning how to tell someone what time it is. I am not positive if I know how to say anything other than when it is on the hour. I don’t know for sure how to add the minutes to the hour, but at least I can say “the time is _ o’clock.” I am workin on 11, and can recall it at the moment, but need to learn 12. I know 1-10. I am also learning the word “what” and the words to refer to “I am doing/I do,” “you are doing/you do,” and “she/he is doing” or “she/he does.” I can put these with “what” to ask “What am I doing?,” “What are you doing?,” and “What is he/she doing?”

I can’t let myself quit again now or I’ll do what I did before. I’ll stop trying to learn this for months or years before returning to studying it, then barely get restarted before I quit again. I don’t want that to happen. Okay, today I need to review everything and learn something new.

Right now I can say this-

1. Jesus (Basically the same word except they pronounce and spell it differently)
2. Cherokee (two ways, counting their pronunciation of the word and the way that means The Principle People)
3. Hello
4. How are you?
5. And you? (can say this two, very similar ways)
6. Good
7. Fine
8. Okay
9. Not Good (really, maybe I shouldn’t count this as a seperate thing, since it is a combo of not and good, and with good night and good morning, I didn’t count them as seperate since they are combinations of words I already have listed)
10. Bad
11. No/Not
12. Yes
13. This is _
14. Mother
15. My Mother
16. Small/Little
17. Dog
18. Fire
19. How
20. Sun/Moon
21. Dweller
22. Day
23. Night (Good Night, also by combining the Good and Night)
24. Is Out
25. Thank you
26. Ouch
27. I love you
28. My name is __/___is my name (say this two diff. ways)
29. Please
30. Earth
31. Goodbye
32. You’re Welcome
33. Trail of Tears
34. Morning (Good Morning also by combining the Good and Morning)
35. One (can say this a couple ways)
36. Two
37. Three
38. Four
39. Five
40. Six
41. Seven
42. Eight (say this two ways)
43. Nine
44. Ten
45. Full
46. And
47. Apricot
48. Locust
49. Hair (can say this two different ways)
50. Are you Cherokee?
51. Baby (very similar to the small/little one, so not sure if I’m saying it quite right)
52. Infant/Child
53. Penis (I can spell it, but dunno how to pronounce it. See the Penis, Thank you post)
54. People (Cherokee referring to themselves and also to other people)
55. I want
56. Help

Words for today, coming up.

there are two main dialects in current usage. According to wiki, while the Eastern dialect using the rolling r did go extinct as did an ancient Cherokee language, “There are two main dialects of Cherokee spoken by modern speakers. The Giduwa dialect (Eastern Band) and the Otali Dialect (also called the Overhill dialect) spoken in Oklahoma.” Maybe I am mixing dialects. Wiki says the Otali use 122 syllables and the Giduwa uses 85. I normally only see those 85 being used, but I think I have seen a little usage of some of the others. Crap, maybe I have mixed them a little. I wouldn’t mindlearning both, but I think it needs to be done seperately if I am to speak either coherently.

okay….these are a problem.

Tsa
Tse
Tsi
Tso
Tsu
Tsv

I have read that the ts in these is pronounced sort of like a j. I have read also, it is like a soft j, and to try to keep your tongue at the bottom of the mouth when say that part to keep it soft. I have also heard it spoke and sounding like a hard j not a soft one. Plus, I have heard it spoke and sounding like a cross between a j and a z, like an elctrified j….kind of like the way Jock is said with a French accent. Plus, on a totally different note, I have heard it said that it is pronoucned like a ch. I’ve been trying to pronounce it somewhere in between all of these. Now on one of the sites I’m using to study, they have pronounciations written beside the words and on some of these in some words they use the ch for the ts in “tsa,”“tse,” “tsi”, “tso,” “tsu,” “tsv.” However, other times it leaves them as ts, as though supposedly pronounced just like that. Now, I am truly confused. Are they supposed to be pronounced as ts part of the time?!

Okay, I have encountered a problem.

Here is the word for thank you- “Wa-do”

Here is the word for penis- “Wa’-do”

Notice the simiularity?

Note that the “Wa’” in penis is accented, unlike in “Thank you”. I do not know how it is accented, however. Also, “Wa’-do-li” can apprently be used for penis.

The problem is, if I say thank you, I can’t be sure that I’m not saying penis. I need help.

Oh, one more thing. Are there any people here who are fluent in this? I need help on a couple of things besides Penis and Thank you.

Wa-do!

Okay, I want to review all I’ve learned, particularly focusing on ones’ I am less comfortable with and more shakey on. I also want to add these words/pharses-

1. I want….
2. help

I would add more, but I still need to learn a couple I learned yesterday better than I know them now. I can think of them, but I am slow at producing them and unsure of myself. So, I want to work on the ones I still am not doing as well with, plus the two above. If I can get all of those down good today long enough before the day ends to add some more words and phrases to my vacabulary, then I probably will.

While not aiming for it particularly, I’ve picked up a bit on “hair,” “Are you Cherokee?,” “locust,” and some other words because some of them (hair and “Are you Cherokee” plus a couple others) are similar to other things I have learned already with some additions/mods. Locust isn’t, but it’s a simple word and reminds me of the word locust which makes it easier to remember. According to the site I was reading it said locust can be said lo-lo. Also as for hair, according to this site, it’s the same as dog, with a “u” attached at the beggining. Well, “u” being the English letter usage of course, and not the cherokee alphabet. Not only is it easier to remember because it is mostly composed a prior learned word, and also, dogs are usually “hairy,” so I try to make such associations in my head, hoping it will make it easier to recall. Okay, just so everyone knows, there are multiple words for dog and for hair. The word I learned for dog was gi-tli, and the word I learned for hair was u-gi-tli. I have thus far found three ways to say hair. One of the ways to say hair is again, similar to the word I learned for dog, but instead of adding a u to the beggining, it adds nothing to the beggining and simply changes the tli at the end to tlu, with the u instead of the i. So, hopefully I can recall at least one way to say hair.

I mentioned yesterday that I wanted to add “You’re welcome,” “please,” “bad,” “Earth, “Trail of Tears,” and “Goodbye.” Well, some of these words/phrases are a bit long. Goodbye is a bit longer than the words I’m used to learning, for example. It’s not really longer than some phrases I’ve learned, though. I don’t know if Trail of Tears and You’re Welcome are any longer than some phrases I’ve learned, either but I’ve been learning some of those phrases (the ones I can find diagramed or in seperate words somehow) in seperate words and I think that makes it easier. Learning You’re welcome and Trail of Tears (Trail of Tears is Trail Where We Cried, but iof diagramable, was not diagramed), is like learning one big word. So it was little more difficult. I have them memorized, but not well. I sometimes stumble on them and have to back track or pause while thinking of the next bit of the word/phrase. Plus when I do say them, I sometimes stop to think if I’m saying the right word/phrase and not mixing it up with one of the others I haven’t learned well, because I’m still a bit unsure in using them. However, I basically have them memorized. I’m just pretty shakey on using them, so I need more practice, but as for now I will count them as memorized (though needing work) as long. I am more comfortable with saying the words “peace,” “Earth,” and “bad,” though.

Oh, and I realized I can also say “and” and “full.” I knew how to say full when I wrote my earlier list, but forgot to say that I had learned it. Also, as for the word “and”....I had made a mistake. On one Cherokee site I thought it was telling me two ways to say “I love you,” but it was saying how to say “I love you” one way and how to say the word “and.” So, I know how to say “and,” now I think. Because of this mistake, I had to go learn how to say “I love you.” I’m a little shakey on the I love you, but I think I’ve pretty much got that one. I can say it with only a slight shake. I say it better than “Goodbye,” “You’re welcome,” and “Trail of Tears.”

Oh, and I also learned the Cherokee way to write and pronounce “Jesus” which, by the way, if it’s said the way I’m saying it, I think is a cute way to say/pronounce it.

Also, I learned to say “apricot.” I didn’t need to learn it as badly as some other words, but I really like the word apricot in Cherokee, because according to the site I was reading, it literally means “yellow that hangs,” which I find cute and amusing, plus I like the sound of the word “apricot” in Cherokee, as well.

Oh, and I can say “Morning” which means I can also say “Good morning” now.

So now I can also say-

Jesus
Morning (and Good Morning since I can say good, as well)
And
Full
Goodbye
You’re Welcome
Trail of Tears
Please
Bad
Earth
Apricot

Today, I especially need to go over the words “Goodbye,” “You’re welcome,” and “Trail fo Tears,” and I should go over “I love you” a little more than some of the other words, as well.

Okay, I need to practice everything I’ve learned. I also want to learn some new words or/and phrases.

Since I can say thank you/thanks, it would be good to be able to tell someone they are welcome.

Also, I think I should learn to say Goodbye because I can say Hello. I mean, you need an ending to a conversation.

I know that perhaps learning just this should make me happy, but I want to learn even more than this. I would like to learn to say the Cherokee name for the Trail of Tears, which I believe, in Cherokee means “The Trail Where We Cried.”

Perhaps I should also learn to say Bad. I can say Good, Not Good, Fine, and Okay, but not Bad.

Also, I think I’m going to try to learn the word “please” and to try and rememeber how to say “Earth.”

is to practice some Cherokee every day. Every day, I want to review what I have learned, and then add something to that. Right now, I can’t say much in Cherokee, but I can say a little. I’m sure I’m not pronouncing everything just right, but I have learned the basic sounds that the English letters, and letter combos, make in Cherokee. I have not learned a lot about the sentence structure, but I think I’ve learned a little. I am also trying to learn the Cherokee alphabet. I haven’t been studying it as much as I should.

So far I can say the following in Cherokee-

1. Cherokee (the way this word is pronounced as well as their name for themselves)

2. Hello

3. How are you?

4. And you?

5. Fine

6. Good

7. Okay

8. Not Good

9. Dog

10. No

11. Yes

12. This is

13. This is my mother

14. Small/Little

15. Fire

16. How

17. Sun/Moon (Apparently the same word is used for both, but from what I can tell on the Cherokee.org site, you can modify it to show which one you are speaking of. They did it by saying day dweller before the word for sun/moon to show it was for the sun, so I figure just switch day to night and you have the moon)

18. Dweller

19. Day

20. Night

21. Good night

22. Is out (I learned how to say “the moon is out” and “the sun is out” using the modification I mentioned in sun/moon)

23. Mother

24. Thanks

25. Ouch

26. I Love You (I don’t know what I think is the more common way to say it. I just went for simple)

27. Numbers 1-10

28. My name is (insert)/(insert) is my name

I’m not sure if I know more or not. That is what comes to mind.