if you read & write ᏣᎳᎩ:

an underline will indicate vowel deletion

Marking for vowel deletion is not standard ᏗᏣᎳᎩ, with perhaps the exception of hymnals, but it can be a helpful tool for learners. This website uses an underline to indicate vowel deletion when writing in ᏍᏏᏉᏯ’s Cherokee syllabary. Most often this will be found on a syllabogram (most symbols in a syllabary, kind of like a letter) that is following another syllabogram, marking the omission of that 2nd syllabogram’s vowel sound. When this occurs, we fully pronounce the 1st syllabogram while dropping only the vowel sound of the 2nd - giving us 2 syllabograms that are pronounced only as 1 closed syllable. Uncommonly a written word will begin with an underlined syllabogram. This occurs when only the consonant of the 1st syllabogram in a word is pronounced.

· Example: ᏥᎪᏩᏘᎭ. We pronounce Ꭺ and also Ꮹ’s consonant sound, but we drop Ꮹ’s vowel sound Ꭰ.

· Another example: ᏣᏓᎦᏎᏍᏕᏍᏗ, as we pronounce Ꮣ plus Ꭶ’s consonant sound, but we drop Ꭶ’s vowel sound Ꭰ.

· An example of vowel deletion at the front of the word: ᏥᏈᏍᏗ, as we pronounce Ꮵ’s consonant sound but not Ꮵ’s vowel sound.

Notating vowel deletion can help people less familiar with reading ᏣᎳᎩ. Underlining to indicate vowel deletion is not standard notation, in fact, there is no standard notation for notating vowel deletion. Some older hymnals use a subscript : colon, some language programs use a , comma, sometimes in handwriting people use an _ underline, & the 2001 “ᏣᎳᎩ ᏗᎧᏃᎩᏍᏗ ᎦᎸᏍᎩ ᎢᏯᏂᏛ ᏧᏃᏪᎳᏅᎯ“ (“Cherokee Hymnal”) published by GBS (Global Bible Society) uses a . period in between the 2 syllabograms pronounced as 1 syllable. This website uses underlined syllabograms to avoid repeating any commonly used punctuation markers, to avoid a diacritical marker for vowel deletion, & for ease of legibility.

Optional vowel omission that frequently occurs at the end of words in colloquial (casual daily speech) spoken ᏣᎳᎩ won’t be noted due to their more optional nature & high predictability.

Syllabogram is a fancy word for most of the symbols in a syllabary. It’s kind of like how an alphabet has symbols called letters. Every symbol in the ᏣᎳᎩ syllabary is a syllabogram, except for Ꮝ. Ꮝ isn’t a syllabogram since it isn’t pronounced as a complete syllable on its own and it will always be attached to a syllabogram. If you’re very curious to what you could call or classify Ꮝ as, one may call Ꮝ a "segmental grapheme”.