Open Letter to the Cherokee Nation

November 4, 2005

Cherokee Nation
Attn: Cultural Resource Center
PO Box 948
Tahlequah, OK 74465
USA

Dear Cherokee Nation Cultural Resource Center,

It was thirteen years ago today that, in the midst of studying Cherokee antiquities at university, I received a grant to develop a computerized Cherokee font. With the $300, I purchased a font creation program, spent some time learning how to use it, and by the summer of 1993, completed the work. Unfortunately, my class had already ended, and other than my own personal research, I no longer had a direct need for my own work. I released it to the public domain, and put up Gopher and Web pages offering downloads and syllabary charts. It proved to be far more popular than I had expected. I've made many friends and acquaintances through the letters I've received regarding the font over the years.

Shortly after the release, Michael Everson took an encoding of Sequoyah's font for the Cherokee language to the Unicode committee, including my work in his initial proposal. As a nineteen year old, it was a morale boost to know I could help the computer world grow, but even then I knew I could add nothing more to the discussion of code pages and preservation of cultural heritage that was not my own. Michael's work has ensured that Cherokee has obtained its rightful place in the international UTF-8 standard.

It was with great joy and reverence that I then learned of the Nation's own efforts, culminating in the release of your official font in 2001. Having taken hundreds of hours to produce my font, I respect what must have been the thousands of hours put in by the Cultural Resource Center to correctly design a keyboard layout. It was absolutely what the next generation Cherokee computer user interface required: attention to detail by the very people who speak and use the language daily.

About three months ago, I received a letter from a private publication, asking me about my font. He wanted to know who used it, and whether I thought it was suitable for current language research. Without hesitation, I told him that it was part of an old research project, and that I didn't think it was suitable for anything these days but ornamentation and the odd tattoo. I directed him to your website, and to a Unicode Cherokee font listing online. I also asked him permission to publish that response on my website, but received no reply.

Rather than continue to wait for a reply, I am sending you this letter today. With all of the erosion of your language to date, I do not wish to muddy the waters any longer. I write to you today not only to offer extremely late congratulations on your font's release, but to make it clear to you, and to my website's visitors, that I am not Cherokee, and I do not pretend that my font is the best solution for any serious linguistic needs. I'm pleased to offer it to those who need a toy implementation, but for real language work, people should use your font, or a font using the UTF-8 standard encoding. As of today, I have revised the text on my website to include the text of this letter. I would have done so sooner, except that it struck me that anyone serious about the language would already have found other resources closer to the Nation on the Internet already.

As I turn to future endeavours, it is my selfish regret that I was unable to work with you and your team in the 1990s to hand over my work to you sooner. I attempted to contact the Nation back then, but ultimately nothing came of it. In the end, you have determined future on your own terms, drawing from your own world experience; I can think of no better outcome.

Sincerely,
Joan Sarah Touzet

P.S. For many years I have gone by the nickname wohali, the origin of which is detailed on my website. I realized shortly after adopting the nickname that it was an incorrect translation of "eagle," the correct translation being uwohali. And while the name was given to me by someone of 3/4 Cherokee blood, I never inquired directly of someone associated with the Nation whether the name was correct, nor whether it was appropriate for me. My sincerest apologies if any action I have taken has offended you or any members of the Cherokee Nation.

cc: Dan Agent, Editor-in-chief, Cherokee Phoenix
cc: Cherokee Nation Webmaster

Font Summary

From the README.TXT file in CherV110.zip:

Developed under Fontographer 3.5 for Windows running under OS/2 Warp 4, this font represents the 85 character syllabary of the Cherokee standard written language. All 6 columns of the syllabary are accessible through standard and shifted keystrokes on any extended keyboard. Additionally, standard punctuation is still available, such as commas, periods, and quotation marks.

The font is available as an Adobe Type 1 font, for use with Macintosh and IBM computers, a customized Adobe Type 1 font for use with NeXTSTEP, and a TrueType font for use with Macintosh and Microsoft Windows systems.

Download Information

New! Version 1.10 adds the archaic "hv" glyph for historical interest, and for the ISO 10646 standardization committee. It is available on the equals key (=). It also repairs the break in the "o" glyph, in the lower-left corner.

To install under Windows, just unzip the file using a program like UltimateZip and drag the Cherokee.TTF file into your Fonts folder (found in your Control Panel.) Macintosh users should drag the font suitcase onto their System folder (OS 9). Macintosh OS X users should drag the font out of the font folder and into HD/Libraries/Fonts. Both fonts will appear in your fonts list. One will say Cherokee, and the one above it will be in Cherokee letters. (Thanks for the tip, Darryl Curtis!)

These links are now HTTP download links. You can still access the files directly via joyce's ftp server.

You can download the latest version for:

Microsoft Windows, DOS and OS/2 (76 KB)
Macintosh (64 KB)
NeXTStep/OpenStep (48 KB)

Also available:

The HTML Cherokee Alphabet and Pronunciation Guide, including keyboard equivalents for my font!
A keymap that shows which keys map to which characters (ASCII, 1.5 KB)

Why is the font so asymmetrical?

Over the past two years, I have received numerous emails from people who want to help me "clean up" the font. One person (who shall remain unnamed) even went so far as to say "Well, it's a good start, but it's pretty crappy."
I spent many long hours exactly duplicating the asymmetries of the font as they appear in Beginning Cherokee (see bibliographical reference below). I could have easily made the font nice and neat, and used lots of cut & paste to make sure that every similar corner was truly identical, and that each character was "clean." That was not my intention. Rather, for artistic and archival purposes, I wanted my printed copy of the texts I was copying from Yale's Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library to look as close to the originals as possible. Most of those texts looked more like the Beginning Cherokee text than a modern, typeset text. I believe that I achieved my goal rather well.

That is not to say that those requests went unheeded. Within the near future (that is to say, 3-6 months), I will be releasing another Cherokee font which will be more symmetrical, more suited for framing. It will not replace this font, but supplement it. I still believe that each has its own place in the Cherokee typesetter's library.

November 5th, 1995

As time has passed, I still stand by these words. However, a recent comment from a fullblood Cherokee has encouraged me to make the small change in v1.10 that closes the loop on the character for "o". While the Holmes and Smith text shows the loop clearly open, this is apparently inaccurate as well as "rough-hewn." I will continue to maintain the antique look of the font, but am always happy to correct any errors in the font.

October 8th, 1996

Renewed interest in the font has me firing up Fontographer again to fix some more bugs, cleanup the install documentation and convert the Postscript table to PDF format, plus some other surprises. Keep your eye peeled for more updates soon!

November 9th, 1998

The font's history

While in high school, I met a dear woman, named Renee Womble. Though she and I never physically met, I spoke with her many times both through a local computer service and over the telephone. Renee is 3/4 Cherokee and 1/4 French, and was born and raised in the Eastern Cherokee reservation in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. She was very depressed when I met her; most of her life had been terribly unlucky, to say the least. I spent many hours speaking with her, sharing experiences, and helping her to feel better -- and she helped me with my problems and teenage angst. Her experiences, her clarity of vision, and her superlative ability to understand and empathize was a great inspiration to me.

One of the few gifts I still have from Renee is much of her poetry. To this day, her poetry remains moving and deeply spiritual, especially when coupled with a knowledge of her past. I invite you to read the fifteen poems I still have from her. The final one, Broken Promises, I worked into a song which I may someday make available here as well. Her poems are incredibly powerful; I hope that at least one of you out there is as moved by her poetry as I was. You can learn more about her poetry from her own website.

Upon entering Yale University, I lost contact with Renee through a freak set of circumstances. When I enrolled in a course in Native American history with Yale lecturer Jay Gitlin, I realized that I would enjoy every minute of the course -- even though I was an electrical engineering major. I decided to write my term paper on Cherokee spirituality, as Renee had piqued my interest in that area. Even with the resources of Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, I discovered one key impediment to my research -- the Cherokee syllabic alphabet. Beinecke Library would not let me photocopy any of their materials, for fear of ruining the original documents, which meant that I either had to translate the texts there (I'm not fluent in the language), or I had to copy the unusual characters myself.

Feeling lucky, I applied for a grant through Yale's Mellon Fund. I managed to get $300 to offset the purchase of Fontographer, a font creation program. I then spent the entire summer between my sophomore and junior years, amongst other things, attempting to duplicate the syllabary as it appears in Holmes & Smith's excellent book, Beginning Cherokee (Norman: University of Oklahoma P, 1976). I decided to give the font the rustic look that the book maintained, instead of opting for a more utilitarian version (such as Michael Everson has chosen for his recent ISO 10646 proposal), as the inconsistencies in the wood-cut type that Holmes & Smith used gave the font a very "living" appearance. I managed to finish the font that summer, and released it onto the Internet and BBSes worldwide, for free.

I therefore dedicate this font to Renee (Cathy Renee Womble Parton). It was her sweet personality that inspired the project, and it was well worth the effort I have placed into the font. The font is also dedicated to all of the Cherokees, with any percentage of red blood, who continue to strive to reclaim their nearly lost language.

Notes on Version 1.10

New in this version is the archaic "hv" glyph, included for historical purposes, and for the ISO 10646 committee. You can access this glyph from the equals key (=).

Also, a significant error has been corrected -- the "o" glyph had an open loop on the lower left portion of the letter. While this is how it appears in Holmes and Smith, I have been notified that it truly should be closed. My apologies to anyone who suffered from this problem. :)

Finally, the rudiments of a kerning table are included in this version.

Notes on Version 1.03

Version 1.03 corrects a width problem on the character "we" and returns it to the greater than key (>) where it belongs. This problem only affected the Adobe Type 1 version. If you use the TrueType version, there is no need to download v1.03.

Notes on Version 1.02

This version of the font fixes all previous problems with character widths. It also repairs some problems with keyboard mappings, and reintroduces some punctuation characters which were broken (doublequote, singlequote, colon, comma, and period.) It was released to honor Chief Wilma Mankiller's trip to Yale University, as part of the Chubb Fellowship program and the Third Annual Spirit of Unity Gathering at Yale University. A framed copy and diskette were presented to the Chief at a Saturday morning breakfast on April 22, 1995.

There will be a few future revisions to the font as I find more time to complete my work. Michael Everson has created a monospaced version of the Cherokee font, perfect for use in business letters and other formal communications. (I do not know whether he plans to make this font freely available, or to sell it for profit.) I plan to keep this font as-is, and to release another, "cleaned-up" version more appropriate for certificates and other situations where a finely crafted font is necessary.

I am fully aware that there are many competing Cherokee fonts out there. However, my intent was never to try and release the definitive Cherokee font. It was only to attempt to start a trend in electronic preservation of Native American languages. The fact that I've received over 1,000 emails from around the world, thanking me for creating the font, has been reward enough for me to continue to pursue the font. If you do stumble across the font in your web searching, and you have found it enjoyable, please do drop me an email at joant@ieee.org. Though I have moved on to the corporate world of electrical engineering, I am sure that my Yale email account will always give you a way to get in touch with me.

Disclaimer

(C)opyright 1993-2002 Joan Sarah Touzet. All Rights Reserved. This font is hereby released into the public domain for the furtherment of research into the native language of the Tsalagi (Cherokee) Indians of North America. This font may be duplicated as many times as needed so long as this information file and disclaimer remain included and intact. No fee may be charged for its distribution except for a modest copying, hookup, or download fee (not to exceed USD$5). This font was created with help from the Mellon Fund of Yale University. This font may not be changed or modified in any way without the express written consent of the author.

This page has been accessed times since its creation.