Leaders of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma have spent the last several months consulting with Motorola to develop a smartphone app that interfaces with the Cherokee language.
The aim is to help preserve the Indigenous language and include younger tribal citizens of the digital generation in that preservation.
The language is spoken by a dwindling number of elders.
Though it will not be a straightforward translation app, phone users will be able to toggle settings using the syllable-based written form of the language first created by the Cherokee Nation’s Sequoyah in the early 1800s.