Was The
Cherokee Syllabary Influenced By Arabic?
Was the "Cherokee Syllabary" influenced by Arabic letters due to an
early Islamic influence upon the Cherokee people? Let's see, inshaa
Allaah.
Below is the Cherokee Syllabary. It shows the letter followed by it's
corresponding sound. How many Arabic letters can you find? Now, how many
Arabic letters can you find that also has the correct corresponding
sound for the Arabic letter?
This (below) is the original Cherokee Syllabary:
(Click on the image to view larger image.)
How many Arabic letters can you find now?
So why wasn't the original used instead of what is known today as the
Cherokee Syllabary? It was for the purpose of typesetting. There would
be much difficulty in using the original for that purpose. George Guess
(Sequoyah) produced the very first publication in Cherokee... the
Cherokee Phoenix (see below). So what is used as the Cherokee Syllabary
today was used for it ease of reproduction and typesetting, not because
the Cherokee language had an Arabic / Islamic influence upon it.
Sequoyah used all the English letters he could for the sounds in
Cherokee, which he got from an English spelling book, and the rest he
made up. As you see there are about 86 letters representing sounds in
the Cherokee language. And since there are only 26 letters in English
(52 if you used both capital and lowercase lettering)... the rest of
the letters had to be created.
Tell Them They Lie
But what about "Sequoyah"? Wasn't he a Muslim? Apparently, if you equate
a turban with being a Muslim (Are Sikhs Muslims too?...LA (NO)). But
guess what?... that famous picture (see below) of Sequoyah wearing a
turban holding the syllabary isn't even "Sequoyah" at all. It is a man
named Thomas Maw.
Sequoyah was neither a Muslim nor a Christian and was even convicted of
witchcraft for maintaining the traditional ways of the Cherokee which
was in opposition to the "New Order" of the Christianized Cherokees. In
fact, he regretted ever have invented the syllabary when he discovered
that it was being used to write a Cherokee version of the Bible.
As far as the turban is concerned, it was adopted by the Cherokees from
Muslims from Indian after a delegation of Cherokees had visited England.
See my article on this and other tales about Islam and Native Americans
being spread here:
Burying 'Digging For The Red Roots'