GOALS:  To translate & share the Old testament.  It is woefully incomplete; To correct typos etc in the New Testament pages; To provide liturgical texts in the Cherokee language; and

To provide supporting literature for study and improved use of the Cherokee language, both in religious and in educational settings.

Some people think the word "BIBLE" refers to only a religious book; while it does indicate that in some cases, it also refers to multiple books.  In our case, our "BIBLE" includes religious books as well as math textbooks, history textbooks, reading primers, almanacs, song books, diaries, letters and many more collections of Cherokee literature.   Radio is currently being explored as a venue.

Mission Statement

to preserve and promote the use of the historic Cherokee Language among individuals, families, and communities using historic sources of Cherokee documents such as books, the Bible, and songs and to use these as the foundation for written, spoken, and sung communications, distributed via various mediums available including print, audio/visual, radio, electronic and technological formats while endeavoring to provide training for those who wish to pursue studies in the Cherokee language and to share that knowledge with others. 

Prentice Robinson, enrolled Cherokee by blood, and Author & fluent speaker, suggests that everyone who wants to seriously study Cherokee Language use the published Cherokee Bible.

Robinson has said on many occasions 

"The Bible remains the basic text of the Cherokee language containing the most nearly complete vocabulary."

"I looked, and there was an enormous crowd that no one could count, 

made up of persons from every nation, 

every tribe, every people, and every language- including Cherokee!"

The first fluent Cherokee that offered to teach me the language said, 

"If you really want to learn, you must learn to read.  And then you must read every day." 

I had learned to recognize syllabary sounds, and said so,  but then I asked, 

"What can I read that is written in Cherokee?"

"The New Testament is available in Cherokee," he said, "If you can find a copy."

This was in the late 1990's, and it didn't take me long to realize there were very few copies of good readable quality available. There were copies, of copies, of copies-- which had become so "muddy" it was hard to figure anything out.

The task of trying to find good reading material in learning and preserving and promoting the Cherokee language ultimately led to this website, and several other websites, even one in bi-lingual Cherokee/Spanish!

[To read more of our history, scroll down page]

Founded 1998

Online since 2001[we could not find an example of posts prior to 2003 (probably because of the format they were in/on) BUT we do have a link to a post from 2003: 2003

501(c)3 status since 2017  December 31st is last day to get donations postmarked to be eligible for deductions.

Cherokee Bible Project

c/o Agent

382 Bailey Hills Rd

Franklin, NC 28734

WHY GOOGLE SITES?

In order to send all resources into translating and associated costs, it was decided to stop paying for a domain and host and move to google sites.  This freed up funds to go directly to translation instead of maintaining the site, which is updated solely by volunteers.  This helped us to acquire materials we needed and be more responsible and better stewards of the gifts from our supporters.

Eventually, after discussing this with the American Bible Society and many others, we began the process of placing the old texts, which had become public domain but were being kept in private collections, onto bulletin board sites and when the internet became widely available, onto sponsored web pages, which became too expensive to realistically maintain.

Because we struggled to find a permanent location and since (at that time) the font was not standardized either and we had to completely start again from scratch on three different occasions.

Finally, unicode was accepted for Cherokee syllabary giving a permanence to the digital work and the google site we had landed on with the support of the google techs began to take more shape.

Then Google developed a font that works with all languages.

We added more sites for Psalms, sites for other Bible based materials, and yes, sites for SECULAR published works.

We added another site for works that were NOT Bible translations.

Back in College, in my Greek class, one of the first words the professor discussed was BIBLE

did you know?

Bible, the English form of the Greek name Biblia , simply means "books" We certainly have acquired a lot of different books!

These include: A copy of an Almanac from the early 1800's was obtained, a song book, a math book and fragments from a history of Rome.

People contacted us asking for help learning to read and we began offering classes and sharing materials.  A blog was created along with a YOUTUBE channel for those who wanted to be able to hear if they were pronouncing correctly.

Another site was added to teach reading and speaking.

And we continue to grow.

A bilingual Spanish and Cherokee Site was added and is in developing stages due to popular demand from many who speak Spanish as a first language.

We have a small library of pre 1900 printed materials in Cherokee syllabary and language and from these we develop more and more for everyone who wants to read the language.

These collections are important to our work, but tend to be rather pricey.  We would like to add more, but private collectors are serious about getting a significant monetary return for their 'investment' so this process of getting these out of hiding and into public viewing has been slow.

If you would like to help, remember, donations to the CBP are used following a process of accountability and good stewardship under the oversight of the IRS since we are a 501(c)3.

We share a copy of the receipt of our purchases of any materials with those who donate to fully purchase one of these collections.

We make all our finances available to our donors, and we provide receipts of donations in accordance with all current IRS requirements.

CONTEST 

We offer a contest!

Each quarter (every 3 months) we take the names of anyone who has submitted corrections to the syllabary to us (and we fix these!) and we draw a winner from the submissions.

Please email us for more information on the contest.

==========

Prentice Robinson, enrolled Cherokee by blood, and Author & fluent speaker, suggests that everyone who wants to seriously study Cherokee Language use the published Cherokee Bible.

Robinson has said on many occasions 

"The Bible remains the basic text of the Cherokee language containing the most nearly complete vocabulary."

HISTORY

Click here to read more About Founders

ANNUAL CHEROKEE BIBLE DAY:  Sept 18 (although many do celebrate this on the Sunday before the date)

ᏣᎳᎩ [tsa la gi] {Cherokee} ᏧᎭᎨᏓᎪᏪᎵ [tsuhage dagoweli] {Bible} ᎠᏎᎸᎯ [a se lv hi] {Project}

This is the OFFICIAL home page of the Cherokee Bible Project.

NOTE ABOUT DIALECTS: 

The Cherokee Bible was produced in the dialect used in middle Tennessee in the area from Ross' Landing (present day Chattanooga) to the Running water towns (up around Jasper, TN) and over to Snowbird (the Robbinsville, NC area).  

To use the Bible in western dialect of Oklahoma no significant changes need to be accommodated.

However, to use the Bible in the Eastern Dialect of the Big Cove area, you need to know the following:

snowbird and Oklahoma use the top row (as shown below)

but eastern (Big cove) does not.

For the same sounds in western, the Eastern dialect only uses the 2nd row as shown below

Swapping out the syllable from one to the other will not change the meaning of the word except in words that were changed after the Female and male seminaries changed the spelling of some words (see the Levi Gritts original dictionary for those words) but more on that in another post.

DID YOU KNOW?

Each month, beginning in 1844, Evan Jones began publishing "the Cherokee Messenger".

On a monthly basis, 1000 copies were printed and distributed.

Portions of the Bible (and eventually even John Bunyan's book "Pilgrim's Progress") were placed in these monthly editions.

As these were received and read, the feedback on them from the Cherokee was used to improve the translations.

In 1846, the entire New Testament was reprinted.

Evans also printed and distributed Hymns in this manner, along with a "Book for Mothers".

This process ensured that the texts were proof read and approved and corrected by fluent Cherokee speakers before the final publication was printed.