Cherokee on the iPhone keyboard

Cherokee now included on iPhone keyboard

By Robert Evatt Though the fifth-grade class at the Cherokee Nation Immersion School in Tahlequah use computers throughout the school day, their eyes light up when education services staff let them borrow iPhones.

Within seconds they cluster around the gadgets, happily tapping out messages like countless other cell-phone users.

But unlike most, their texts aren't in English--they're in Cherokee.

And they aren't using specially modified iPhones. Every one of the estimated 100 million global iPhone users running iOS 4.1, the latest version of the smart phone's software released last month, already have support for the distinct Cherokee language within their device.Below:  "Sean Sikora (left), Cambria Bird, Alayna Harkreader, Lauren Hummingbird (seated) and Maggie Sourjohn laugh while working on a Macbook at the Cherokee Nation Immersion School." (Mike Simons/Tulsa World)