#but you dont need to have cherokee ancestry to learn the language.

[bucephaly]

Is it wrong to learn Cherokee if I don't think I'll ever be able to be claimed by the Nation? My grandmother (mom's mother) was Cherokee and I just want to learn the language, learn more about the history and reconnect, but I don't think our meager documents from her would ever be enough to grant me membership to the Nation. And I'm alright with that, in that I know she, as someone who loved languages and encouraged me to get into linguistics when I was little, would have been thrilled to see me learning Cherokee, a language she did not speak (due to a very abusive adoptive family; it's a long story, we don't need to go into it here).

I know it may seem weird to want to know the language without being officially Cherokee/recognized by the tribe. But I know her. When she found out my grandfather had been beaten for speaking his native language in his home country and not the official language, she pushed him to speak it and learned some of it so she could speak it with him. She believed every group has a right to its' language and that stamping a language out is a sick, vile thing to do. I know she would have approved. Anything that kept a language alive was good in her eyes.

I also know that, much as she was steadfast in her beliefs, no one person's beliefs can function as a stand-in for the beliefs of others. I wouldn't want to presume her being fine with it = it being fine. I do worry that this verges on cultural appropriation on my end. There are a lot of people who love to pretend to be Native online and this feels like it's right on the verge of that. I feel like I'm running the risk of becoming one of those white people who renames myself with nature words and insists on checking 'Native' on census forms without actually being connected to the Nation.

After some discussion with my mom, I wasn't really able to parse if I felt like this was appropriate or not, so I thought I'd ask you. I don't want to overstep any boundaries here or be yet another white guy going, "I'm entitled to this, because I say so."

You can learn cherokee if you aren't cherokee, the classes are open to the public.

If you want to get your genealogy done, check out the Cherokee Indians Research & Genealogy Facebook group. Scroll down my blog a bit, there's a post where I talk more about cherokee genealogy and reconnection.