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Cherokee Nation translation specialist Durbin Feeling prepares students for testing in his Cherokee literature text class at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Okla. ROBERT STINSON/CHEROKEE PHOENIX
 
 




By JAMI CUSTER
Reporter

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – Cherokee Nation translation specialist Durbin Feeling said curiosity led to his learning to read and write the Cherokee language.

“I learned to read (Cherokee) when I was 12 years old. I learned that while watching my dad always reading his testament,” Feeling said. “One day when I was playing around I got curious and stood by him, and what he would do is take his pen out and guide me while he was reading.”
Feeling said eventually he picked out short words to read.

“Maybe I would read about two syllables or something like that and the next syllable I may not know, so I went to the back of the testament where there was a pronunciation guide…I would go back and forth like that. It’s kind of self-taught I guess,” he said.

Becoming literate in the language eventually led Feeling to the CN, where he’s worked off and on for 30 years. He said he initially worked in the translation department. Today, he still translates, but with better technology. 

He said he just finished making 12,000 Cherokee words available on Google and that his work is compatible with Apple’s iPhone and Droid smartphones.

“Much of the things can be written in Cherokee in Google. You can also text and email in Cherokee,” he said.
Feeling said the language has progressed in the past decade because of technology and the tribe’s Cherokee Language Immersion School.

“It’s quite a ways in the last maybe 10 years I should say because I think the best thing that has happened so far is the immersion. Even though the kids aren’t picking up the words that well yet,” he said. 

He said immersion students are slowly learning the language because it is complex.
“So it’s kind of challenging, and I think some of those things are the things that the kids are slow in picking up, but hopefully they will.”

Feeling said there are many things he’s proud to be associated with, such as writing books, helping create the Cherokee dictionary and teaching at Northeastern State University, but he’s also proud of his translation work.

Translating the language, he said, is how one becomes immersed in the language and that’s when one can really “know” the language.

“A person can speak, but until they get into translation and become familiar with the parts of speech and the morphology and all the other things that go into learning a language, the linguistic part, that’s when a person will really have learned their language,” he said. “You got to do your own work. We shouldn’t look at it negative. We have a guy who is a student at Northeastern. He was 16 years old when he first came to the conference. He was already studying on his own. He taught the syllabary to himself. He could read, but he couldn’t understand what he was reading.”

Feeling said when he came to the CN in 1976 he was teaching in communities and that students needed learning materials then and still do.

“I realized that the students need other things, you know learning materials and things. I started doing what the students needed and kind of neglected the teaching part…The boss that I had said ‘you got to be out there teaching. That’s why I hired you. Don’t be sitting around writing things,’ But that’s exactly what they need. We need a lot of research even today in Cherokee. There are documents and literature out there that hasn’t even been touched at all.”

jami-custer@cherokee.org

918-453-5560