CHEROKEE ON-LINE DICTIONARY

COMING SOON

 

Critical to the continuing revitalization of the Cherokee language is the need for the development of a “Cherokee Dictionary” of all Cherokee stems, affixes, words and phrases in an easy-to-access electronic computer database. The 7,000 Cherokee lexicons on the CN website offers a simple and efficient way to look up individual Cherokee words and translations however it is an extremely limited learning tool for the more serious students of the Cherokee language. 

 

The most important reason for creating an electronic database instead of the typical print dictionary is an electronic version can more readily serve different types of users. An electronic database also allows users who are not accustomed to seeing the stem form of word to also access the more common words, users with different ways of writing Cherokee can be served, it will be easily searchable for developing lesson plans, will have many different examples of words such as synonyms, anonyms, and most importantly an electronic database can be easily maintained and updated. Further the electronic database allows for the use of the Cherokee syllabary, different spellings of words, represent all (audio) dialects including the Eastern Band, and will be linguistically accurate which serve linguists and anyone interested in learning the Cherokee  language.

 

CNEC recently contracted with noted linguists Drs. Brad Montgomery-Anderson, NSU Assistant Professor, and Akira Yamamoto, KU Professor emeritus, to guide Cherokee language experts and to further develop the project.