Any speakers or learners of Native American languages on here?
I’ve just started learning Cherokee as it is one of my ancestral languages. I’m delighted to discover that it includes the scariest parts of every language! First of all, it has its own written form to be learned (an 85 character syllabary, not too difficult). It is also a tonal language. Having 6 tones it is more difficult than Mandarin with its 4 tones. Cantonese has 6, but has no conjugation whatsoever while Cherokee is a polysynthetic language, which means its grammar plus tones makes it like Russian or Arabic on speed! Other Native American languages seem to be similarly difficult in this respect.
Despite this, I have faith in the LingQ method that I can learn the language well. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be hardly any resources for learning the language the LingQ way.
There is a newspaper in Cherokee called the Cherokee Phoenix which is now published on the internet. I’ve also found some authentic material (dialogues, stories, etc.) on Youtube but without transcripts or word lists. And without any good electronic dictionaries, it’s very difficult to study Cherokee the LingQ way. I’ll have to get the best paperbound dictionary I can find and do what I can with it.
I’ve improved my Chinese so much and so quickly using LingQ, I would love to have the resources to study Cherokee in this way. But alas… it is slowly growing out of endangerment, so I must be content with what we have.