"the People's Paths!" Cherokee News Path

TAHLEQUAH, OKLAHOMA – For most of his life Ed Fields knew he was meant to teach the Cherokee language and help people using the language. The 59-year-old Cherokee Nation Language Instructor is currently in the middle of 10-week online class teaching students from all over the world how to speak, read and write Cherokee.

“It’s a good feeling,” he said. “I get to meet people from all over the world.”

Anyone who has Internet access can take the class. The free Cherokee I, II, III classes are held Monday through Thursday for 10 weeks. Fields teaches all three classes. The Cultural Resources Center and CN Information Systems have collaborated for the past four years to conduct the classes, which average 1,000 students. Students from the United States, Ireland, Mexico, Venezuela, Serbia, New Zealand and Germany are learning from Fields.

Some students take the Cherokee I class twice or more until they are satisfied they have learned enough and are ready to move on to Cherokee II, he said. All classes are archived so students can review a class when finished. In Cherokee I, Fields teaches basic vocabulary and conversational Cherokee like greetings – “O-si-yo” (hello) and “Do-hi-tsu” (how are you). Students who progress to Cherokee II learn phrases and begin to learn the Cherokee syllabary, and Cherokee III is dedicated to the syllabary.

“Most of them learn the basics pretty easy. Those that are really interested in the language learn right off the bat,” he said. “It’s a learning process for all of us.”

He said he encourages his students to start with a basic sentence in Cherokee and add to it as they learn more of the language. “I tell them where words linger longer and how it can change the meaning of a word,” he said.

Fields gets to know some of his online students outside of class time. Sometimes they discuss childhood memories or share stories their elders told them. Many of them explain why they are taking the Cherokee classes.

“They want to take it because their parents or grandparents talked the language, and it’s something they belong to,” Fields said. “They also want to pass it on to their kids and grandkids like you are supposed to do.”

Some parents encourage their children to take the online class, Fields added. Other students are retired teachers who volunteer at schools and teach Cherokee in those schools. After taking online classes, some students form groups to continue learning the language and speaking it to each other.

“Some will e-mail me and say that when they went back home they spoke Cherokee to their friends or elders and they would smile. A couple of students, who had not learned Cherokee growing up, went home and talked to their elders in Cherokee, and the elders were really glad to hear them talk Cherokee,” Fields said. “Some say they didn’t learn it growing up, but were glad they got to speak Cherokee to their elders before they passed away.”

The first time Fields realized he could help people with the language was when he was a young boy. A Cherokee man was talking to his dad and mentioned he had a letter written in English that he did not understand.

“Dad said, ‘let the boy read it.’ I read it and translated it to Cherokee for him. I kind of liked that. I was able to assist someone,” he said.

Over the years he has used his language skills to help Cherokee speakers understand English better. Eventually he began working for the CN and taught community Cherokee language classes, but he wanted to do more with the language.

“I was always looking for something, or something was missing. When I got to do community teaching, I thought this is good, but I wanted to do more,” he said. “When I started doing the online class, boy it felt really good and really comfortable.”

The current 10-week online Cherokee class will end in November. Enrollment for the next class is in December for the January to March classes. Enroll by e-mail.