Before he could even walk, JW Webster could do something only a handful of other people in the world could do: speak the Cherokee language.
Today Webster is one of only 1,200 people who can fluently read, write and speak the indigenous language — which is ranked as one of the most difficult languages to learn. This semester, Webster’s sacred knowledge became part of Wichita State University’s applied linguistics program through a new class, Elementary Cherokee I (LING 590).
Webster, a certified Cherokee language instructor, grew up in Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma with his great aunt, and he didn’t learn English until just before he started kindergarten.
Throughout the past few centuries, the number of people who speak indigenous languages has dwindled dramatically, as many Native Americans were killed, and government policies systematically banned and discouraged Native Americans from speaking their languages and practicing their cultural rituals.
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And Cherokee isn’t a language that a person can casually pick up. It’s rated a class IV language in its degree of difficulty, making it among the most difficult to learn. Not only is it a polysynthetic language (meaning a sentence-word might be comprised of several single words), but it’s also a tonal language (meaning how a word is spoken can change its meaning). And on top of that, the written language has no diacritics (such as accent marks) to let speakers know where to put the emphasis on certain words.
"I teach culture with the language class, which is a new approach to teaching Cherokee. It’s our belief that you can’t learn Cherokee without learning how we live."
Eventually, Wichita State plans to add Cherokee II and Cherokee III language courses, which will make students “semi-fluid speakers of the language,” Webster said.
Cherokee is an indigenous language of the Iroquoian language family with less than 2,000 speakers.
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