Cherokee on a Smartphone: Part of a Drive to Save a Language

Cherokee on a Smartphone: Part of a Drive to Save a Language

The Cherokee are a large Native American tribe. Many live in Cherokee Nation, a huge reservation in the state of Oklahoma. Others live farther east, in places like North Carolina and Delaware.

The Cherokee language is considered endangered, or at risk of disappearing. The majority of people who speak the language are old. Recent efforts involving technology, however, might help speakers use the language more in daily life.

Last week, Motorola introduced a Cherokee-language operating system on its newest phones. Phone users will be able to find apps and explore settings using the written form of Cherokee. The system, or interface¹, will appear on the company's Edge Plus phones when they go on sale this spring.

By itself, the Cherokee interface will not be enough to save the language. But it might be a step toward immersing younger tribal² citizens in the language.

That is the hope of Principal Chief Richard Sneed, a leader of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. The tribe is one of three federally recognized Cherokee tribes in the country. Sneed hopes that more inclusive technology will help keep the language alive. He and other Cherokee leaders spent several months working with Motorola to make the Cherokee language interface possible.

It is not the first time a technology company has offered the Cherokee language on their products. Apple, Microsoft and Google already offer users a choice to use Cherokee on computer keyboards. But the Cherokee experts who worked on the Motorola project said they tried to include the culture as well as the language.

For example, the start button on the Motorola phone has a word that, in English, means "just start." It reminds language expert and Cherokee, Benjamin Frey, of how older tribe members speak.

"It could have said ‘let's get started' in many different ways," Frey said. "But it said halenagwu — just start. And that's very Cherokee. I can kind of see an elder kind of shrugging and saying, ‘Well, I guess let's do it.' ... It reminds me...of how the elders talk, which is pretty exciting."

Frey is an American studies professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel³ Hill.

Motorola had the goal of developing an interface in a language that is considered endangered. It also wanted to work with a language that has an active community of experts.

"We work with the people, not about the people," said Juliana Rebelatto. She is chief linguist⁴ for Motorola's mobile division. "We didn't want to work on the language without them."

Motorola designed its Cherokee project based on a similar Indigenous⁵ language project that Rebelatto worked on in Brazil. Frey and Sneed say they recognize that some Cherokee will have concerns about tech companies using their language.

"I think it is a danger that companies could take this kind of material and take advantage of it, selling it without sharing the proceeds with community members," Frey said. But, to him the good the technology could do was worth that risk.

Frey did not grow up speaking Cherokee. That is partly because of his grandmother's experiences as a child.

For more than 150 years, Indigenous children in the U.S. and Canada were taken from their communities and forced into boarding schools. The young people were barred from using their native language.

Frey's grandmother and others of her generation were beaten for speaking the language. They were told that "English was the only way to get ahead in the world," Frey said. Frey's mother, as a result, did not learn Cherokee.

Only about 225 of the 16,000 members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians spoke⁶ Cherokee as their first language at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Now I think we're down to 172 or so," said Sneed, the principal chief. "So we've lost quite few in the last couple of years."

Frey hopes the new Motorola phone tool will be a conversation-starter between older Cherokee language speakers and their grandchildren. But he added that it will take more involved language efforts to really make a difference.

"If the youth today are watching TikTok videos, we need more TikTok videos in Cherokee," said Frey. "If they're paying attention to YouTube, we need more YouTubers creating content in Cherokee.

"We do have to make sure that the language continues to be used and continues to be spoken," said Frey. "Otherwise, it could die out."

Words in This Story

reservation - n. an area of land in the U.S. that is kept separate as a place for Native Americans to live

immerse - v. to make (yourself) fully⁷ involved in some activity or interest

keyboard - n. the set of keys that are used for a computer or typewriter

button - n. a small area on a computer screen that you click on to make the computer software do something

linguist - n. a person who studies linguistics⁸ (the study of language)

indigenous - adj. produced, living, or existing naturally in a particular region or environment

(take) advantage (of) - n. to use (something) unfairly for personal gain

proceeds - n. the total amount of money or profit that is made

conversation - n. an informal talk involving two people or a small group of people : the act of talking in an informal way

1 interface   

n.接合部位，分界面；v.(使)互相联系

参考例句：

• My computer has a network interface,which allows me to get to other computers.我的计算机有网络接口可以与其它计算机连在一起。
• This program has perspicuous interface and extensive application. 该程序界面明了，适用范围广。

2 tribal   

adj.部族的，种族的

参考例句：

• He became skilled in several tribal lingoes.他精通几种部族的语言。
• The country was torn apart by fierce tribal hostilities.那个国家被部落间的激烈冲突弄得四分五裂。

3 chapel   

n.小教堂，殡仪馆

参考例句：

• The nimble hero,skipped into a chapel that stood near.敏捷的英雄跳进近旁的一座小教堂里。
• She was on the peak that Sunday afternoon when she played in chapel.那个星期天的下午，她在小教堂的演出，可以说是登峰造极。

4 linguist   

n.语言学家；精通数种外国语言者

参考例句：

• I used to be a linguist till I become a writer.过去我是个语言学家，后来成了作家。
• Professor Cui has a high reputation as a linguist.崔教授作为语言学家名声很高。

5 indigenous   

adj.土产的，土生土长的，本地的

参考例句：

• Each country has its own indigenous cultural tradition.每个国家都有自己本土的文化传统。
• Indians were the indigenous inhabitants of America.印第安人是美洲的土著居民。

6 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

7 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

8 linguistics   

n.语言学

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• Linguistics is a scientific study of the property of language.语言学是指对语言的性质所作的系统研究。