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Cherokee Nation translation specialists are, from left, Dennis Sixkiller, Anna Sixkiller, David Pettit, Durbin Feeling, John Ross and Phyllis Edwards. WILL CHAVEZ/CHEROKEE PHOENIX
 




By WILL CHAVEZ
Senior Reporter 

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – Cherokee Nation translation specialists Phyllis Edwards first learned the Cherokee syllabary from her uncle Ben Bush when she was a young girl. 

“My first language was the Cherokee language. That was all that was taught in the home. I was about 6 years old when I first starting learning the English language and it was very hard.”
  
She was 8 years old when her uncle began teaching her, her siblings and cousins how to use the Cherokee syllabary chart. 

“After a stickball game at the (stomp) grounds, he would take the young kids and he would sit down and teach the syllabary charts,” she said. “He did that for maybe two years and then he passed away.” 

After his death, everyone “drifted away” from the syllabary because nobody took his place, she said.

Edwards, who was raised in Marble City in Sequoyah County, was reintroduced to the syllabary chart about four years ago, when the CN began sponsoring Cherokee language classes in communities. She attended a class for two years and relearned how to read and write the syllabary. 

About three years ago, the place where she had worked for 32 years in Fort Smith, Ark., closed, which led her to the tribe and its translation department. 

“I had always wanted to work on something like this (language), and then somebody mentioned they (CN) may have an opening for a translator and so I applied and got it,” she said. “To me, I think everything that we do here in this department is important. You can’t say this is more important than this, and that’s also dealing with the public…if you can help them it makes you feel good that you were able to help somebody.”

Edwards said she didn’t teach her children how to speak Cherokee because of the difficulties she had while attending public school. 

“The reason I really did not really push our language in my home was I had such a problem when I started when I was 6 years old. It was like going to a different world trying to understand the English language,” she said. “You were not allowed to talk Cherokee, and there was not anyone available at that time like a bilingual speaker to translate what was being said to us. 

“I did not want to put my kids in that situation, so therefore I let them learn the English language so it would be easier on them because you don’t how it is to feel like that where you are thrown into a situation where you don’t understand what’s going or what’s expected of you,” she added.
Edwards said the trauma of being forced to learn English has stayed with her, but she regrets not teaching her two children to speak Cherokee.

“They understand (Cherokee) to a certain extent, but they do not speak the language,” she said. “My children are saying ‘why didn’t you just go ahead and teach us.’”

The result of her children’s generation not learning to speak Cherokee is a language gap between her generation and the generation of children attending the Cherokee Language Immersion School. 

The future of the language may rest in the hands of the 100 or so students at the immersion school, and Edwards said she is happy to support the school and enjoys visiting the students.
“I just love to hear them talk. They’ll come running to you saying ‘osiyo, osiyo’ (hello). It’s so good to hear that.” 

She said it’s not important that the children always speak proper Cherokee as long as the elder speakers can understand them and there is communication occurring. 

“In each community the language is spoken differently, and there’s dialects, and I think it can be wrong. I mean, so long as two people can communicate with each other and understand what is being said, I think that’s fine,” she said. 

She also understands that even with the efforts being made to save the language, it’s not safe from disappearing. But she’s hopeful the technology such as iPhones and iPads that translators and immersion students use will help save it.

“There are also translated books that young children or anybody can use as a reference and then we have the (language) CDs,” she said.

Edwards added that thanks in part to the translation staff, there is more Cherokee syllabary material available for people who want to study the language and learn to read and write it. 

will-chavez@cherokee.org
918-207-3961