Phoreus Cherokee, a typeface to modernize the Cherokee language

With only 10’000 people still speaking the Cherokee language, it is becoming urgent for them to save one of the few remains of what was once a great nation. There are no magic methods to save a language, but a graphic designer, Mark Jamra, is bringing his own contribution to the table: a modern Cherokee typeface.

This font, name Phoreus Cherokee, gives a new life to the language by fixing the words on paper and making it more official. It’s not the first Cherokee typeface, but it’s now the most accurate one. Compared to the standard latin characters set, a Cherokee alphabet was hard to design. The Cherokee language is based on tunes, with each symbol corresponding to a syllable. That gives you a total of 86 glyphs and letters.

To build this typeface, the designer used historical documents. He also had a close collaboration with Roy Boney Jr, a Cherokee who is responsible for the language program of the Cherokee Nation. The typeface is available for download in digital formats, and hopefuly it will help preserve the heritage of this civilization.