Cherokee Nation language department seeks 100 hours of conversational Cherokee, expands digital curriculum
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Summary
Howard Peyton told the Culture Committee the language department is building a conversational-recording initiative, a baby-immersion app and an expanded animated curriculum — including 33 short films due by Sept. 30 — while reporting enrollment and translation progress for recorded interviews.
Howard Peyton of the Cherokee Nation language department told the Culture Committee that the department is pushing to gather a focused corpus of conversational Cherokee and expand learning tools for families and classrooms. “We’re trying our best to get 100 hours before October 1 of just conversational Cherokee,” Peyton said, adding that staff aim to translate and document interviews to identify gaps in the lexicon.
The report to the council said reservation-based community classes had about 100 participants this term and that the department now offers four levels of online courses with roughly 258, 93, 50 and 41 students enrolled respectively. Peyton said the department has recorded about 975 interviews and has translated 69 so far; the team is estimating roughly 10,010 words per interview for planning and archiving work.
The department is also developing curriculum and multimedia to support learners. Peyton said 33 short animated films — designed to be adaptable across grade levels — are scheduled to be delivered by Sept. 30, and that the team has identified about 150 traditional stories for curriculum integration. He described a baby-immersion app intended for parents, which would require participating caregivers to attend classes and use the app at home to reinforce language exposure.
Peyton summarized speaker-services activity and capacity-building work: 38 active projects, 41 completed projects, and 10 additional projects on the books. He framed the conversational-hour initiative as a complement to formal classroom instruction: “We’re trying to see the difference between formal language and conversational Cherokee,” he said, noting recent work comparing methods with other tribes.
Councilors praised the department’s reach and immersion programs during follow-up remarks. Councilor Clifton Hughes said the department is doing “a great job” recruiting young people; Councilor Lisa Hall thanked staff for community classes and noted families are engaging with classes across communities.
The committee did not take formal action on the language items during the meeting; the department was invited to continue its work and report progress to the committee at future meetings.
