The Talking Leaves of the Cherokee

Quiet Canines Podcast · Oct 17, 2026 · 2m

This Indigenous man is the only person in history to create a system of writing from scratch by himself.

What makes this even more remarkable, is that he invented it without knowing how to read or write.

The man’s name was Sequoyah. And the year was 1809.

At that time, the 300 diverse languages spoken by Native Americans did not have a written form. Sequoyah had seen white soldiers reading from what he called “talking leaves.” And he was determined to find a way for the Cherokee Nation to do the same.

He worked so obsessively that his neighbours thought he was practising witchcraft, and his…