Cherokee Nation® Dictionary
Durbin Feeling
Durbin Feeling is hailed as the “single largest contributor to the Cherokee language since Sequoyah.”
Born in Locust Grove in 1946, Feeling was a first-language Cherokee speaker, not learning English until he started first grade. He became an ordained Minister and was a Vietnam Veteran, earning a Purple Heart and National Defense Medal.
He went on to author or co-author at least 12 books, contribute to countless research articles, and teach Cherokee at colleges such as the University of Oklahoma, University of Tulsa, and the University of California.
Feeling’s accomplishments include writing the Cherokee-English dictionary that is the base of this digital resource; adding Cherokee Syllabary on a word processor in the 1980s; starting the process to add the Cherokee language to Unicode, which today allows smartphones to offer Cherokee Syllabary; and developing hundreds of Cherokee language teaching materials that remain in use by speakers today.
Durbin Feeling had a lifelong commitment to the Cherokee Language and the importance of understanding. His final charge was,
“Every day, just keep speaking Cherokee. If you do that, it will all be OK”
“Durbin Feeling was our modern-day Sequoyah, a Cherokee National Treasure who was the very first person chosen to sign our Cherokee Language Speaker’s Roll because he was so cherished by our first-language speakers and entire tribe. Everything we are doing for language revitalization is because of Durbin.”
“Though our hearts are devastated by Durbin’s passing, we are humbled by his generosity. In his honor, we will do our best to continue his work. History shall read that there was a man who was born among the Cherokee people, who stood up in the face of numerous adversities, who saw the future of the Cherokee people would be grossly at a disadvantage without its language, and who worked tirelessly to build tools and a vision for the better part of his lifetime to prop up a language which was endowed by the Creator from the beginning of time, to serve the uniqueness of the Cherokee people. For this, the Cherokee people will forever be indebted to Durbin Feeling.”
Credit: The Oklahoman
Cherokee Nation translation specialist Phyllis Edwards, who was raised in Marble City in Sequoyah County, first learned the Cherokee syllabary from her uncle Ben Bush when she was a young girl.
“My first language was the Cherokee language. That was all that was taught in the home. I was about 6 years old when I first started learning the English language, and it was very hard.”
She was 8 years old when her uncle began teaching her, her siblings and cousins how to use the Cherokee syllabary chart. “After a stickball game at the (stomp) grounds, he would take the young kids and he would sit down and teach the syllabary charts.” After his death, everyone “drifted away” from the syllabary because nobody took his place.
Edwards was reintroduced to the syllabary chart about four years ago, when the CN began sponsoring Cherokee language classes in communities. About three years ago she moved to the Cherokee Nation translation department.
Edwards says she didn't teach her children how to speak Cherokee because of the difficulties she had while attending public school. “It was like going to a different world trying to understand the English language. You were not allowed to talk Cherokee, and there was not anyone available at that time, like a bilingual speaker, to translate what was being said to us.”
The result of her children's generation not learning to speak Cherokee is a language gap between her generation and the generation of children attending the Cherokee Language Immersion School. The future of the language may rest in the hands of the 100 or so students at the immersion school, and Edwards says she is happy to support the school and enjoys visiting the students.
“I just love to hear them talk. They'll come running to you, saying 'osiyo, osiyo' (hello). It's so good to hear that.”
Credit: Cherokee Phoenix
Cherokee Nation translation specialist
Russell Feeling sings 'Amazing Grace' in Cherokee at opening ceremony for the Durbin Feeling Language Centre
Russell Feeling, brother of the late Durbin Feeling, is perpetuating the Cherokee language through prayer, worship, and preaching.
Feeling is Pastor at the New Jordan Baptist Church, one of the few Cherokee-speaking churches within the Cherokee Nation Reservation in which the majority of members fluently speak the language for prayer, singing, preaching, and fellowship. It is in Mayes County, east of Salina.
“We do a lot of Cherokee talking and singing. It’s a big part of the church. Most of us are fluent Cherokee speakers there. It does kind of make you glad to see that the Cherokee language is still being used that way, and it is being utilized in messages, prayers, and songs.”
Feeling says it’s not difficult for him to translate his preaching into Cherokee, as he just grew up that way. He also notes that in some ways it does enhance the understanding of the scripture if you can hear it in Cherokee and in English, then putting both together it seems to clarify the message a little more.
Aside from preaching and singing, he says that fellowship among the church congregation also allows speakers a space to converse.
“I think now we’ve been awakened to the fact that we may be losing the language, or at least it’s being used less. When you think about that, the possibility of not having the Cherokee language in the future, it encourages you to do more speaking, conversing in the Cherokee language during fellowship time at church.”
Credit: Cherokee Phoenix
Cherokee Nation translation specialist
Cherokee National Treasure. Cherokee Nation translation specialist.
A portrait of Anna Sixkiller by Keli Gonzales
Anna Sixkiller grew up in the Leach community in Delaware County and Cherokee was the only language she knew until school.
"That was the language in our home. My parents both spoke the language. I just learned by listening and hearing it every day.”
After dinner, her family listened to her father tell Cherokee legend stories, the same stories now shared in books created by the CN translation department. As a girl, Sixkiller knew she would have to learn to read the Cherokee syllabary before she could read her mother's Cherokee Bible. But it wasn't until she was older with her own children when she became dedicated to reading the Cherokee Bible and learning to write the syllabary.
“We do a lot of Cherokee talking and singing. It’s a big part of the church. Most of us are fluent Cherokee speakers there. It does kind of make you glad to see that the Cherokee language is still being used that way, and it is being utilized in messages, prayers, and songs.”
She began working for the CN Cultural Resource Center in 2000 after teaching Cherokee in communities for 12 years. Along with translating materials for the Cherokee Language Immersion School, Anna translates for universities, libraries, the tribe's Cultural Tourism, and clinics and hospitals.
Being a translator requires more than knowing how to speak Cherokee. "To be a translator you have to think in the language. You have to think in Cherokee." At times, when translating a news story or document, the staff must consult older documents to find the proper words, which allows her to discover new words and explore Cherokee thought written in the syllabary. Some older documents, more than a century old, force the translation department to gather to provide input about the meaning of old Cherokee words that are no longer used.
Many books and documents translated into Cherokee have her name on them.
"My great-great-great grandchildren may pick up a book and say 'I know this person. That was my great-great-great grandma.' That's what I think I'm leaving behind.”
Credit: Cherokee Phoenix
Cherokee National Treasure. Cherokee Nation translation specialist.
Dennis Sixkiller, Credit Chad Hune/ Cherokee Phoenix
Cherokee Nation citizen Dennis Sixkiller grew up in Jay speaking Cherokee as his first language. However, as he got older, he said he began to use the language less and less.
"I could understand it all, but I wasn't using it or talking it. I had to go back and learn how to talk and how to say some of the words in Cherokee. Still have some words that I have problems pronouncing, but as far as using it daily. You really have to keep on using it or you will lose it."
Sixkiller works as a CN translation specialist and learned to read and write Cherokee about 10 years ago. He said working in the translation department helps increase his language knowledge.
Aside from translating, Sixkiller produces a radio show on Tahlequah radio station Lakes Country 102.1 FM on Sundays as well as teaches the language in Cherokee communities.
Sixkiller also helps with the revitalization efforts as part of a consortium group between the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina and the CN. The group meets about four times a year.
Sixkiller said he hopes to leave a legacy not only for his children and grandchildren, but also for anyone with a desire to keep the Cherokee language alive.
"I interviewed an elder not too long ago and he told me that the day that you lose your language is the day that we lose our identity as a Cherokee. And that really sticks out to me and I don't ever want to lose the language."
Credit: Cherokee Phoenix
Credit: Cherokee Phoenix
