Virginia advocate. [volume] (Charlottesville, Va.) 1827-1860, 1828-03-22
From the Richmond Enquirer.
a CHEROKEE NEWSPAPER

CHEROKEE NEWSPAPER
The press has been employed in n York& Phla.
delPhla Tor establishing newspapers among the A
1ricans III those cities. 1t is now shedding its light
among the Indians We received Yesterday
morning newspaper printed in the Cherokee
tribe "A part of 1t in the English character and
part OF 1t In type specially for the purpose of
representing the Cherokee Alphabet invented by
Mr.. Guess 1t is singular specimen of typogra-
phy-and is left at office Tor the inspection of
the curious The first page and half of the End
present part of the "CoAstitution of the Chero-
zee nation, formed by a convention of Delegates
from the several districts, at New Echota. july
1897" 1t is printed in both the English and
Cherokee Alphabets in parallel columns. The
Lor0S prayer, both in Prose and Verse, on the
lth page, and two other articles on the Sd page
are also displayed in the Cherokee type-and a
Key Is furnished in very interesting communca.
'ion' on the 4th page OF the Alphabet of the Che.
fokee language-the number of characters is So
more than twenty of which are represented by En-
gllSh types corresponding to the vowes and the
cohsonants IA, g, In, k, l. M H. S, {, W and W
i ne rest are characters specially shaped and cast
tor the purpose Each character represents a
syllable by itself'-Two very important adyan-
tages are claimed for the Cherokee Alphabet over
the Roman as applied to the writing of the Eng
hsh language One is, that excepting the varia.
tons OIL longer or shorter, harder softer as from
Ia ~ aud more or less aspirated sounds, each
character IS the invariabe representative of the
same sound; while in English the same sound
may have half dozen different signs, or the same
sign may represent as many different sounds -
Another source of wonder in regard to the Che
rokec Alphabet is +; that so few syllable charac-
tiers are sufficient TO write a language" Certainly
they are sufficient to write it, and that in man
ner vastly more perfect than the English language
is written by means of the Roman Alphabet of
letters. Two things account for the fewness of
the requisite syllable characters. First the few
ness ct consonant sounds in the language Second
~, and chiefly, the circumstance that cuery syHa-
6fc IN the language ends acih a coweI sonnd A
little calculation will show what vast difference
the latter circumstance makes in the number OF
possible syllables. Suppose, for example, fhe
number OF simple aid compound consonant sounds
IN each OF two languages to be ID, and the number
OF Vowei sounds q in either language vowel
standing alone may constitute syllable; but in
one every syllable ends with a vowel sound las in
-Cherokee)-in the other las in English) a sylla.
BILE may either begin or end, or both, with a con-
sonant. Now though the number of consonants
and Of novels is the same i'm each language. vet
L our arithmetic be correct. the number of posi-
bic syllabcs in the latter is 1886, while in the
former it is only 06" Enough however of the
pecuIiarities Of the Cherokee Alphabet: which
cannot be clearly explained to the reader without
his having the Alphabet itself before him