The Cherokee Syllabary as Handwritten by Sequoyah:
a e i o u v
ga ka ge gi go gu gv
ha he hi ho hu hv
la le li lo lu lv
ma me mi mo mu Ø
na hna nah ne ni no nu nv
qua que qui quo quu quv
sa s se si so su sv
da ta de te di ti do du dv
dla tla tle tli tlo tlu tlv
tsa tse tsi tso tsu tsv
wa we wi wo wu wv
ya ye yi yo yu yv

Click here to see handwritten examples of the script as it might have appeared in words and phrases of actual documents in Sequoyah's time.

To compare the handwritten forms in the chart above with two common printed versions, click here.

And click here to view a facsimile of the historical document from which I cut-and-pasted these .GIF files. Sequoyah's purpose in creating that document was evidently to create a chart for his own or others' reference showing each original character (the more complex forms not included on my page) and the corresponding new form (the simpler form like those above that was created to facilitate printing). You'll notice that he has grouped the characters in sets of two by inserting squiggly vertical lines to set them off. The left character is his original design while the right character corresponds to the printed form.

Notes on the creation of these .GIFs:

Please note that I did not alter Sequoyah's handwriting at all except to patch together from elements on the page five characters that were either missing from the original document or else improperly copied. These characters are:
  1. (DO), which I had to invert because it appears upside down: (thirteen from the left in line three of the original document)
  2. (YO), which was missing its loop at the top: (ten from the left in line two of the original document)
    I took the loop from (WA) and pasted it to the stump to create this form. I tried the same thing using the loops from (HI), (TSI), (GU), and (GA), but the (WA) loop seemed to create the best effect. Here's what a couple of the others looked like:
    (from the HI loop), (from the TSI loop) If one of these looks better to you, please let me know.
  3. (TLA), which was derived from (leftmost item in line six of the original document) by lengthening the horizontal line in order to disambiguate it from (LI) which was likewise derived from this character for lack of a better source.
  4. (LI), which was created by removing the short vertical stroke in the bottom right corner of . I would have preferred a larger loop on the top, and I attempted to invert (DA) for this purpose, but the resulting backwards slant did not fit in well with the other characters when combined in text. Here's what that looked like:
  5. (TLI), which I created by erasing the extra loop from , the unknown character appearing two from the left on line three in the original document. Another possibility would have been to modify (NAH), but I was satisfied enough with this result that I didn't try that. I may actually revert to the original form at some point if it becomes apparent that Sequoyah customarily wrote it that way. There may, for example, be other documents written in his hand in a museum in Tahlequah or elsewhere which could be checked.
  6. In addition to these five characters, I created a question mark: by inverting (YV) and removing one of the loops. I don't care for it, though, and am open to ideas as to how to create a better one using Sequoyah's handwriting from somewhere on the page.

I also left out three unfamiliar characters, one of which I mentioned just above. These are:
  1. , the character appearing eight from the left on line one in the original document, which closely resembles (TLV),
  2. , the character appearing eleven from the left on line two in the original document, which bears some resemblance to (NAH), and
  3. , the character appearing two from the left on line three in the original document, which I think is probably (TLI) as I mentioned above.
I am not aware of what function these three characters may have had in Sequoyah's system. Please feel free to contact me if you have information about this or other aspects of the syllabary with which to enlighten me.


Additionally, you may have noticed that (MO) has an odd loop off to the left and that (GO) has an extra vertical line right through the center of the crossbar. The printed fonts don't have these extra elements. I don't know why they occur here but, again, I welcome any elucidation that a Cherokee elder or other learned individual may have to offer on the subject. Please drop me a line.

If you'd like your own set of these .GIFs, click on one of links below to download the .ZIP file:

1. Cropped .GIFs -78k (as they appear in the table above) --- 2. Extending from top line to bottom line -108k (click here for an example of what these look like)

The Cherokee Syllabary as Handwritten by Sequoyah / v1.0 / April 13th, 1999 / .GIFs created by David Harris

Visit these other Cherokee-language links:
Cherokees of California: Cherokee Language Lessons
The Cherokee Observer's Language Page (Observer font needed to read Cherokee portions)

To access the main page of the Dave's Bargain Basement site, click here.