Cherokee Letter Tsa

On the Cherokee Nation keyboard, press Shift+E. Each key on this layout enters one Cherokee syllabary character; lowercase e enters a different letter.

On a phonetic Cherokee keyboard, enter the syllable transcribed as tsa; the exact keys depend on that layout.

What sound does Ꮳ represent?

Tsa: the ts in cats, followed by a as in father.

One Ꮳ writes one Cherokee syllable, not a complete word; surrounding Cherokee characters give the word its meaning.

Between 1815 and 1821, Sequoyah developed the Cherokee syllabary, a writing system in which each character represents a spoken syllable; the Cherokee Nation adopted it in 1825. The Cherokee Phoenix, a Cherokee newspaper, printed the script in 1828. Forced removal and assimilation disrupted Cherokee communities, and the syllabary is taught in language education. As of 2025, Cherokee Nation materials include syllabary charts and reading exercises. In the 1840s, missionary James Evans drew inspiration from the Cherokee system's success when developing Cree syllabics, a separate writing system.

Why does Ꮳ look different?

Font and case support can change its appearance.

Its smaller case counterpart is ꮳ. A font without the Cherokee glyph may show an empty square; the square means the character is unavailable in that font, not that Ꮳ has changed.