Cherokee Syllabary Texts: Digital Documentation and Linguistic Description

Abstract

The Digital Archive of American Indian Languages Preservation and Perseverance (DAILP) is an innovative language revitalization project that seeks to provide digital infrastructure for the preservation and study of endangered languages among Native American speech communities. The project’s initial goal is to publish a digital collection of Cherokee-language documents to serve as the basis for language learning, cultural study, and linguistic research. Its primary texts derive from digitized manuscript images of historical Cherokee Syllabary texts, a written tradition that spans nearly two centuries. Of vital importance to DAILP is the participation and expertise of the Cherokee user community in processing such materials, specifically in Syllabary text transcription, romanization, and translation activities. To support the study and linguistic enrichment of such materials, the project is seeking to develop tools and services for the modeling, annotation, and sharing of DAILP texts and language data.