Cherokee (Tsalagi) Native American Language Basic 1.0

Osiyo! Cherokee-owned Thornton Media (www.ndnlanguage.com) presents Cherokee Basic, the first Native American Indian language app available on the iTunes Store. Cherokee Basic, offers 460+ Cherokee words, phrases and syllabary entries by native speakers of the Oklahoma Cherokee tsalagi dialect. Included is a zoom-able syllabary chart! Begin learning the beautiful Cherokee language anywhere, anytime from native speakers of the language!

View demo video on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ9ApASIyOQ

FEATURES
• A total of 467 professionally recorded audio entries for language learning
• 18 different categories: Daily Phrases, About Food, Kinship Terms, Pow-Wow, Concepts and Values, Numbers, Months, Days, Time, Colors, Human Body, Animals, Weather, Materials, People, Greetings, Message from your Teacher
• Practice all 84 sounds of the Cherokee Alphabet in separate entries
• Includes a zoom-able syllabary chart viewable horizontally or vertically
• Recordings by fluent speakers of the Oklahoma Cherokee dialect

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=323711514&mt=8

Sequoyah
A Cherokee genius named Sequoyah created the Cherokee alphabet so that Cherokees could learn to read and write their own language as the Europeans did. When he began working on his “talking leaves” many Cherokees thought he had gone crazy and accused him of witchcraft. After recognizing the value of his work, the Cherokee Nation rapidly began to use his syllabary and officially adopted it in 1825. The literacy rate of Cherokees quickly surpassed that of surrounding European-American settlers. Within 3 years the Cherokee Nation began publishing the Cherokee Phoenix Newspaper which is still published today HYPERLINK "http://www.cherokeephoenix.org/". Sequoyah remains the only person in history to create a workable alphabet on his own.

Cherokee is disappearing
There are fewer than 7,000 native speakers of Cherokee in the US and most are over age 60. Existing revitalization efforts such as immersion schools produce a few speakers per year, not nearly fast enough to replace the elder speakers we are losing. Cherokee-owned Thornton Media has worked with over 100 tribes creating custom tools for their language programs. We offer the highest quality language tools available anywhere. We are completely self-funded and create our products without any assistance from anyone, including my tribe the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.

We believe that language revitalization is a numbers game. The more Cherokee speakers that can be produced; the more chance the language has to survive. There are many Cherokees in the US, but not many speakers. I produced this language module with family members (mother, grandmother and aunt) and some friends from the Tahlequah area of Oklahoma. I hope this tool will heal save my endangered language.

Your iPod Cherokee Teachers:
Luella Vann Thornton – Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma (mom)
Lucinda Robbins - Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma (grandmother)
Della Wolfe – United Keetoowah Band
Harry Oohsawee - Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma
Cora Vann - Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma (aunt)

Wado! Thanks to all who helped to create Cherokee Basic. If there are any mistakes on this app they are mine, not those of the speakers, if you see any mistakes please contact me as we will be updating the app with more entries. All speakers were compensated for their work.

Thank you!

Don Thornton, President
Thornton Media, Inc.