Sample Characters
First 48 characters from Cherokee (U+13A0–U+13FD)
About Cherokee
The Cherokee syllabary was invented around 1820 CE by Sequoyah (also known as George Gist), a member of the Cherokee Nation who was himself illiterate. Having observed the power of written communication among white settlers, Sequoyah spent over a decade developing a script specifically for the Cherokee language.
The syllabary has 85 characters, each representing a syllable. Within a few years of its introduction, the majority of the Cherokee Nation had become literate, and a Cherokee newspaper (the Cherokee Phoenix) was established in 1828. The syllabary is still used today and is a source of great cultural pride.
Data sourced from the ISO 15924 registry, Unicode CLDR, and the Unicode Character Database.
Languages Using Cherokee 1
Frequently Asked Questions
What type of writing system is Cherokee?
What direction does Cherokee read?
How many languages use the Cherokee script?
When was the Cherokee script created?
Compare Cherokee With Another Script
Direction, characters, languages — side by side.
Key Facts
- ISO Code
- Cher
- ISO Number
- 445
- Script Type
- Syllabary
- Direction
- Left-to-right
- Status
- Living
- Region
- American
- Characters
- 172
- Introduced
- 1820 CE
- Languages
- 1
Unicode Ranges
-
CherokeeU+13A0–U+13FD
-
Cherokee SupplementU+AB70–U+ABBF