The Cherokee Indians (彻罗基印第安人) lived in different states in the southeastern and southern parts of the United States. Like many other languages, Cherokee was originally only a spoken language, that is, there was no system for writing or reading this language. However this problem was solved by a Cherokee Indian named Sequoyah, the inventor of an alphabet that let people read and write Cherokee. Sequoyah was born in the state of Tennessee. He was born of an Indian mother and a white father. Although he did not receive any school education, he recognized the value of reading and writing. Every evening he worked hard to come up with an alphabet. In 1823, he completed his alphabet after twelve years of hard work. His alphabet had symbols for the eighty six sounds of Cherokee language. Thousands of Cherokee learned to read and write because of Sequoyah's new alphabet. Soon, a newspaper, Phoenix, was published in both English and Cherokee. Sequoyah himself moved to different states teaching his new alphabet until his death in 1843. He was nearly sy years old. His willingness to help his peop le will be remembered f or a long time.