Rose Cottage

  What a lovely week with lots of tsalagi sprinkles!  On Saturday, our Willamette TsaLaGi and the Mount Hood groups hosted folks from the Cherokee Nation for a feast and gathering in Salem, Oregon!  Principal Chief Chuck Hoskins Jr   Guests included Principal Chief Hoskins, Storyteller Robert Lewis, at large council members, and several others - plus 2 ASL interpreters! My friend ᎵᏒ (Li-sv) helped send food and volunteered at the Willamette TsaLaGi booth. When I met Chief Hoskins, I mentioned taking Cherokee online with Ed Fields, and he, in turn, mentioned that during his 'state of the nation' talk! I'm in Ed's first Cherokee ᏅᎩ (nv-gi /Four) class, and we're learning verb tenses. It's fun for all of us (Ed included!) to work with new sentences and 'Word pictures.' This week I also joined the hybrid language study group which meets at the Longhouse at Lane CC. This is where our language classes have been held - and is open for use by indigenous groups. ...

 Today I began cutting up some old magnetic business cards to create CWY Syllabary fridge magnets! I used a gluestick and calligraphy paper on the cards - each tag is 1 × 3/4". Business card magnets I got 8 tags from each card, plus a 2 x 1/4" strip. I'll likely make more for symbols like di and ss,  which may occur several times in a word or sentence.  Worked on this whilst attending an excellent (zoom) presentation offered by the Smithsonian, on ways the 'California' gold rush affected the indigenous residents .... which group was 'uncivilized?' A - e - i - o - u - v (Top down) After cutting them apart, I calligraphed the symbols, and will add a coat of mod podge. Now they're on the side of my fridge, ready to go!  Syllabary magnets What should the first words be?  yunaduliha yanadeloqua  'if they want to, they will learn.'

Learning Tsalagi continues to be an awesome journey. We're over halfway through summer classes with Ed Fields, and our in-person weekend with Woy' ale Ahid' was great!  A couple of the gals and I formed a study group, and have met virtually several times.  In the go-ge-yi (spring), I made Syllabary flash cards for the 85 characters. This writing system was crafted by Sequoyah, with a character for each syllable plus the 6 vowels and s (which indicates the sound 'ss' - or a question when at the end of a word:  tsa-du-li /  you want it / tsa-du-lis / do  you want it?)   Tsalagi values Following a recent group call, I reorganized the cards into sets following the order used in the ' Let's Learn Cherokee Syllabary ' chapters. This little book was written by a speaker who learned to read and write Japanese, using a similar book to learn the kanji. Though Marc could speak Tsalagi, he couldn't read or write ( i-go-li-yes-gv ale go-we-lo-di)  the language,...

Osiyo - hello For over 3 decades, I've been interested in learning Cherokee, and have gathered resources when I could.  I picked up books, including a little Cherokee Syllabary dictionary, and practiced the writing. My dad's mom Minnie had Cherokee heritage, and the language has similarity to the Gaelic other ancesters spoke. Syllabary + Ed's ale Mary's book This spring I signed up for live  online dideloquasdi (school/ learning) via the Tsalagi (Cherokee) Nation - which funds language classes throughout the year - at no charge to the students! Taught by first language speaker Ed Fields, with assistance from Meli (Mary Rae) who began taking Ed's classes nearly a decade ago, these classes offer a wonderful glimpse into the world view and culture! (Here's Meli and Ed's site  which includes little word puzzels) This post by another of Ed's students provides a nice overview of the classes, which still use the format Jamie describes. The online classes a...