Tahlequah Local Customs

Only about 5% of Cherokees today speak their original language. This is due largely to the unenlightened minds of a bygone era in American History, when it was illegal for the Cherokees to bring up their children speaking their native tongue. Many Cherokee children were taken from their homes and placed in foster care with English speaking families so they could learn English.

Cherokee is a branch of the Iroquoian language in the same sense that many western languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian, etc.) have their roots in Latin. Cherokee is the only southern Iroquoian language that is still spoken.

The Cherokees are the largest of America's "Five Civilized Tribes," and they were the only Native Americans to have their own alphabet and written language. The Cherokee alphabet or syllabary, with 85 characters, was the creation of Sequoyah, a remarkable Cherokee man of mixed blood from East Tennessee who lived in the late 1700s and early 1800s. This extraordinary achievement is the only known time that an individual has created a totally new system of writing. Sequoyah never learned to speak, read or write in English.

Today the Cherokees are making efforts to revive and preserve their language in several ways, including the placement of signs in both Cherokee and English. One such sign can be seen in this photo of the plate glass front of the Bank of America in Tahlequah. Many street signs and others on public and private buildings are also in both Cherokee and English.