Grammar
Cherokee, like many Native American languages, is polysynthetic, meaning that many morphemes may be linked together to form a single word, which may be of great length. Cherokee verbs, the most important word type, must contain as a minimum a pronominal prefix, a verb root, an aspect suffix, and a modal suffix. For example, the verb form ge:ga, "I am going," has each of these elements:
| g- | e: | -g | -a |
| PRONOMINAL PREFIX | "to go" |
The pronominal prefix is g-, which indicates first person singular. The verb root is -e, "to go." The aspect suffix that this verb employs for the present-tense stem is -g-. The present-tense modal suffix for regular verbs in Cherokee is -a
The following is a conjugation in the present tense of the verb to go. Please note that there is no distinction between dual and plural in the 3rd person.
| Singular | Dual incl. | Dual excl. | Plural incl. | Plural excl. | |
| 1st | ᎨᎦ gega – I'm going | ᎢᏁᎦ inega – we're going (you + I) | ᎣᏍᏕᎦ osdega – we two are going (not you) | ᎢᏕᎦ idega – we're all going (3+, including you) | ᎣᏤᎦ otsega – we're all going (3+, not you) |
| 2nd | ᎮᎦ hega – you're going | ᏍᏕᎦ sdega – you two are going | ᎢᏤᎦ itsega – you're all going | ||
| 3rd | ᎡᎦ ega – she/he/it's going | ᎠᏁᎦ anega – they are going | |||
The translation uses the present progressive ("at this time I am going"). Cherokee differentiates between progressive ("I am going") and habitual ("I go") more than English does.
The forms ᎨᎪᎢ, ᎮᎪᎢ, ᎡᎪᎢ gegoi, hegoi, egoi represent "I often/usually go", "you often/usually go", and "she/he/it often/usually goes", respectively.
Verbs can also have prepronominal prefixes, reflexive prefixes, and derivative suffixes. Given all possible combinations of affixes, each regular verb can have 21,262 inflected forms.
Cherokee does not make gender distinctions. For example, ᎦᏬᏂᎭ gawoniha can mean either "she is speaking" or "he is speaking."
Read more about this topic: Cherokee Language
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