The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-09-26
acters. upon collecting all the syllables

acters. Upon collecting all the syllables which, after long study and trial, he could recall to his memory. he found the number to be S2. In order to ex- press these he took the letters of our alphabet for a part of them, and va rious notifications of our letters, with some characters of his own invention for the rest. With those symbols he st abouts writing letters, and very soon a correspondence was maintained be- tween the Cherokees in Wills valley, Alabama, and their countrymen beyond the Mississippi river, 500 miles apart. This was done by individuals who could not speak a word of English, and who had never learned any alphabet ex- cept this syllable one, which Guess had invented, taught to others. and intro duced into practice. The interest in this matter has been increasing for the last two years. until at length young Cherokees travel a great distance to be instructed in this easy method of reading and writing. In three days they are able to commence letter writ ing, and return h ome to their native village prepared to teach others. Either 1George Guess himself or some other person has discovered four other sylla- bles, making all the known syllables of the Cherokee language 86. This is a very curious fact, especially when 1t is considered that the language is very copious on some subjects. single verb undergoing some thousands of inflec- tions."
 The Rev. s. A. Wanater writes thus: ''It is worthy of note that MT. George Guess, the inventor is man past the middle age He had seen books, and l am told had an English spelling book in his house, but he could not read word in any language at all. This al- phabet consists of 86 characters, each of which represents a syllable with the ex ception of one which has the sound of the English letter ''s' and is <prefixed to other characters when required. These S6 characters are sufficient to write the language at least intelligibly. The alpha bet Is thought by some of the Chero- kees to need improvement but as 1t now is 1t is easily read by a very large DOT ton of the people though there has been no regular school in which 1t has been taught, and 1t is not more than two years since 1t was invented. A few hours of instruction are sufficient for a Cherokee to learn to read his own lan- guage intelligibly. The extent of my in- formation will not enable me to form an estimate of the number in the nation who can thus read, but am assured by those who had the best opportunity of knowing, that there is no part of the Cherokee nation where the alphabet Is
 
 every other method of writing the lan- guage there is no doubt. If a book were printed in those characters 1t could cas- ily be read in every part of the nation. , If, on the other hand, 1t were printed In the English language, 1t would require several months in school in order to learn to read, which scarcely any but children and. doubtless. for years to come, but a very small part of them could do. Prob ably at least 20. perhaps 50, times as many would read a book printed with Guess' alphabet as would read one Tn English" In the same article the Rev. MT. 8. A. Wocester gives the sounds represented by these characters ,sa ana m the Missionary Herald of July, lSz7, he kagain refers to the subject. 'I am not in- !, sensible of the advantages which MT. | PickerinR in common with that In use of the Sandwich Islands possess above the English by being more nearly per feet alphabet. Nor do l suppose that more than half the time would be re- n,ired for a Cherokee child to learn to read his own language in that alphabet. i which is required for an English child | to learn him. but in point of simplicity, I Guess has still the pre-eminence and In no language. probably. can the art or reading be acquired with nearly the same facility" In the issue of the Missionary Herald for December. 1927. the same {, writer contributes i've verses of Genesis fin inc syllabary and this. 50 far as Is 1 known. is the first printing ever done in the characters of the Cherokee alpha ] Tn February, 1923, the first number of l The Cherokee Phoenix, weekly news l paper partly in English, and partly in ! Cherokee characters, was published It New Echota, the capital of the Cherokee nation. The first book printed In those ] characters was probably the Cherokee | hymns, compiled by Ellis Boudinot and ' Nr. worcester. end pubushed at New