ᎦᏙ
gado
The Cherokee word for the English interrogative pronoun "what" is ᎦᏙ (gado).
Meaning: what? (interrogative pronoun) (pron)
How do you pronounce it?
gado
Did you know?
- Cherokee utilizes 'evidentiality', meaning the way a person asks 'what' can subtly indicate whether they saw the event themselves or heard about it from someone else.
- The syllabary used to write ᎦᏙ was invented by Sequoyah, a man who was reportedly completely illiterate in his own language before creating the system.
- Cherokee is a polysynthetic language, meaning a single word can contain an entire sentence's worth of information, making the simple word ᎦᏙ a rare exception in its brevity.
Example conversation
Two people are looking at a strange object on a table.
- AᎦᏙ ᎢᎦ?gado iga?What is this?
- BᎠᏓᏅᏓᏓ ᎢᎦ.adanvdada iga.This is a tool.
- AᎦᏙ ᎢᏓᏓᏅᏓᏓ?gado idadanvdada?What is that (one)?
- BᎠᏓᏅᏓᏓ ᎢᏓᏓᏅᏓᏓ.adanvdada idadanvdada.That is also a tool.
