Abstract
This document points to resources for the layout and presentation of text in languages that use the Cherokee script. The target audience includes developers of Web standards and technologies, such as HTML, CSS, Mobile Web, Digital Publications, and Unicode, as well as implementers of web browsers, ebook readers, and other applications that need to render Cherokee text.
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This document points to resources for Cherokee script layout and text support on the Web and in eBooks. These requirements provide information for Web technologies such as CSS, HTML and digital publications about how to support languages written using the Cherokee script. The information here is developed in conjunction with a document that summarises gaps where the Web fails to adequately support the Cherokee script.
The editor's draft of this document is being developed in the GitHub repository Americas Language Enablement (amlreq), with contributors from the W3C Internationalization Interest Group. It is published by the Internationalization Working Group. The end target for this document is a Working Group Note.
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Some links on this page point to repositories or pages to which information will be added over time. Initially, the link may produce no results, but as issues, tests, etc. are created they will show up.
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This document points to resources for Cherokee script layout and text support on the Web and in eBooks. These resources provide information for developers of Web technologies such as CSS, HTML and digital publications, and for application developers, about how to support languages written using the Cherokee script. They include requirements, tests, GitHub discussions, type samples, and more,
The document focuses on typographic layout issues. For a deeper understanding of the Cherokee script and how it works see Cherokee Orthography Notes, which includes topics such as:
Phonology,
Vowels,
Syllables, and
Numbers.
This document should be used alongside a separate document, Cherokee Gap Analysis, which describes gaps in language support for users of the Cherokee script, and prioritises and describes the impact of those gaps on the user.
Gap reports are brought to the attention of spec and browser implementers, and are tracked via the Gap Analysis Pipeline. (Filter for Cherokee script items)
The document Language enablement index points to this document and others, and provides a central location for developers and implementers to find information related to various scripts.
The W3C also has a repository with discussion threads related to the Cherokee script, including requests from developers to the user community for information about how scripts/languages work, and a notification system that tracks issues in W3C working groups related to the Cherokee script. See a list of unresolved questions for Cherokee experts. Each section below points to related discussions. See also the repository home page.
The Cherokee script is a syllabary. Letters typically represent a combination of consonants and vowels.
Cherokee text runs left to right in horizontal lines. Words are separated by spaces.
The script is becoming bicameral, after a long period when syllabic characters resembled uppercase letters.
The Cherokee syllabary has 85 characters, of which 6 represent syllables that start with either no consonant or with ʔ (Ꭰ Ꭱ Ꭲ Ꭳ Ꭴ Ꭵ), and one character represents the non-syllabic consonant sound s (Ꮝ). The rest nominally represent a combination of consonant plus vowel, though the actual practise is a little more nuanced, and there is a degree of vagueness in the script when it comes to phonetically transcribing spoken sounds. It is a simple syllabary where letter shapes don't follow any systematic pattern.
The script doesn't fully represent the sounds of the spoken language. Vowel length is not distinguished, with some exceptions syllable-final consonants and syllable-initial aspiration are not reflected in the orthography, and the user has to figure out when to drop the vowel of a CV letter to make consonant clusters. Some readers are beginning to use diacritics to indicate pronunciation more accurately.
The spoken language is tonal, but tones are not written. A set of diacritics exists, however, to enable linguists to indicate tones.
There is no standard spelling. The way a word is written may vary, according to the pronunciation of the writer, or choices they make for dealing with consonant clusters.
The visual forms of letters don't interact. There are no combining characters or diacritics, and ASCII digits are used.