Sequoyah’s syllabary created a written language for the Cherokee
189 points by grahambargeron
by rayiner
3 subcomments
The article’s title is misleading: “The Man Who Created a Written Language for the Cherokee Did It So Efficiently and Elegantly, His Peers Thought It Was Magic.”
His peers thought it was magic because they were unfamiliar with the concept of writing, not because his writing system was so efficient. He was put on trial for witchcraft because people thought he was communicating via magic. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/sequoyah-a....
by steve-atx-7600
4 subcomments
Not even an example of the glyphs??? Smithsonian must be another repository of clickbait like Forbes.
by torben-friis
4 subcomments
>The syllabary was widely lauded, as its phonetic accuracy and simplicity made it far easier to grasp than English.
I mean, that feels like it's bound to happen when an alphabet is built to represent current language or pronunciation. English is notoriously awful for not doing that.
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