Cherokee New Testament (1860)

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Cherokee New Testament (1860) (CHRCNT)

Overview

The Cherokee New Testament (1860) is the first complete New Testament in the Cherokee language, published by the American Bible Society using the Cherokee syllabary invented by Sequoyah (George Gist) around 1821. [1] The translation was principally the work of Rev. Samuel Austin Worcester (1798–1859), a missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), who collaborated with Cherokee scholars including Elias Boudinot and Stephen Foreman over a period of more than thirty years. [1] Worcester and Boudinot published a translation of Matthew in 1829, followed by Acts (1833), John (1838), Luke (1850), Mark (1857), and Romans through Ephesians (1858), among other books. [1] Worcester died in 1859, just one year before the complete New Testament was published. [2] The ABCFM oversaw the casting of Cherokee syllabary type and the establishment of the Cherokee press, which also produced the bilingual Cherokee Phoenix newspaper beginning in 1828. [3] This 1860 edition remains a landmark in the history of indigenous-language Bible translation in North America.

Language and People

Cherokee (ISO 639-3: chr) is spoken by approximately 1,520 people in Southeastern United States of America. [Glottolog: cher1273]

Publishing and Organizations

Published by American Bible Society.

References