See also my posts First Nations Font Thursday 1 and First Nations Font Thursday 3.
To many non-Native Americans, Thanksgiving Day is a celebration of family, friends and the founding of this country, and an opportunity to think about the things we’re grateful for.
To many Native Americans, however, it is known as the Day of Mourning. From the website of UAINE (United American Indians of New England):
Since 1970, Indigenous people & their allies have gathered…to commemorate a National Day of Mourning on the US Thanksgiving holiday. Many Native people do not celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims & other European settlers. Thanksgiving Day is a reminder of the genocide of millions of Native people, the theft of Native lands and the erasure of Native cultures. Participants in National Day of Mourning honor Indigenous ancestors and Native resilience. It is a day of remembrance and spiritual connection, as well as a protest against the racism and oppression that Indigenous people continue to experience worldwide.
http://www.uaine.org/
On this day every year, I highlight current ways Native people are keeping their written languages, and thus part of their culture, alive: typefaces, for instance, are constantly being added to the online world.
This year’s post has several sections about the Cherokee language. From a National Geographic article:
In the early years of the 19th century, the remarkable inventiveness of a Cherokee man, named Sequoyah, helped his people preserve their language and cultural traditions, and remain united amid the encroachment of Euro-American society into their territory. Working on his own over a 12-year span, Sequoyah created a syllabary—a set of written symbols to represent each syllable in the spoken Cherokee language. This made it possible for the Cherokee to achieve mass literacy in a short period of time. Cherokee became one of the earliest indigenous American languages to have a functional written analogue.
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/sequoyah-and-creation-cherokee-syllabary/
Artist bloodworld has a beautifully drawn syllabary of “tsalagi, known in English as Cherokee,” at https://www.behance.net/gallery/22060567/tsalagi.” Another example is from the Cherokee Nation website at https://www.cherokee.org/media/0iglscmt/sequoyahorder.pdf
If you’re a Native American reading this post, know that there are some non-Natives interested in helping keep your written languages alive. If you’re non-Native, I hope this has given you some alternate ways to think of this day.
Languagegeek provides, free of charge, a number of quality fonts for Native languages across North America and the world.
The Aboriginal Series of fonts contains a full host of characters for languages using syllabics, Cherokee, and Roman orthography, and was designed specifically for on-screen viewing. https://www.languagegeek.com/font/fontdownload.html
Includes: Syllabics (Cree, Ojibway, Naskapi, Inuktitut, Dakelh, Blackfoot, Dene), Cherokee, Roman Orthographies
ALGONQUIAN (CREE, OJIBWAY, NASKAPI)
The artist bloodworld, who drew this syllabary, says “the language is tsalagi, known in English as Cherokee.”
https://www.behance.net/gallery/22060567/tsalagi. You can find this piece and more of bloodworld’s artwork at https://www.behance.net/bloodworld.
From https://language.cherokee.org/fonts-and-keyboards/cherokee-fonts/
ᏣᎳᎩ ᏄᏍᏛ ᏗᏙᏪᎵᏍᎩ
Cherokee Fonts
The Fonts listed below are made by third parties unaffiliated with the Cherokee Nation. Cherokee Nation is unable to offer technical support for these fonts, some of which are free and others that are available for a minimal fee. The user of these products assumes all associated risks.
- Noto Sans Cherokee – open-source font developed by Google Aboriginal Sans, Aboriginal Serif and Digohweli fonts available from www.languagegeek.com
- Plantagenet Cherokee – from Ross Mills at Tiro Typeworks
- Everson Mono – a mono-width font with Cherokee support by Michael Everson
- Several Cherokee Fonts – by designer Chung-deh Tien
- Code 2000 – (includes Cherokee syllabary as well as other languages)
- Marin – by Mark E. Shoulson
- MPH 2B Damase – from WAZU JAPAN
- Explora – by font designer Rob Leuschke
- Tsali Tsalagi Font
The fonts in the download section below are provided as-is, with no warranty. They are freely available to download, share and modify not-for-profit courtesy of the Language Technology Program. Font installation instructions are available in the instruction documentation provided below.
Downloads
- Anowelisgv
161.9 KB — Updated: 5/29/2019
A dot-to-dot font of the syllabary and the numbers 0 – 9. - Donisiladv
81.4 KB — Updated: 5/30/2019
A simple sans serif Cherokee font. - Tsulehisanvhi
99.5 KB — Updated: 5/30/2019
A Unicode compatible font based on the original Cherokee Nation font. - Install Fonts MAC
1.6 MB — Updated: 5/30/2019
Instructions on how to install fonts on an Apple/MAC computer. - Install Fonts PC
1.7 MB — Updated: 5/30/2019
Instructions on how to install fonts on a Windows computer.
