Make Cherokee Sentences Using Dictionary - Part 1

May 22, 2016

You can use our dictionary to make sentences and begin speaking Cherokee. The patterns for sentences in Cherokee are very regular, so we will explain in the blog this week and next week how to do this. A dictionary subscription is $6.99/month.

Cherokee sentence structure goes backwards relative to English, so it might sound like Yoda if you translate literally:

Coffee I-am-wanting. Kowi agwaduliha.

Her-family she-loves-them. Duwaltina’v getsigeyuso’i.

The important part is to get the “Big Word” right. This is the long word in Cherokee that equals a complete sentence in itself. Agwaduliha = I am wanting (something) right now.

If you take our courses, you will learn how to put these words together using the Grandmother Chart. Or you can find them in the dictionary and plug them into these sentence structures.

1. If you’re talking about going somewhere, living somewhere, being somewhere, or doing anything that has to do with time and place, the sentence structure goes like this: When- Where –Big Word.

*When*	*Where*	*BIG WORD*
Ohni	Ela Wodi	dagesi
Later	Yellow Hill	I will go

In English: Later I will go to Yellow Hill.

In Cherokee: Ohni Ela Wodi dagesi.

2. If you’re talking about doing something, the subject comes first (the one doing the action) then the object (person or thing the action is being done to) then the Big Word that is a whole sentence.