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Registry, Malta, and Ecuador. There

1:12

are somewhere around 7,000 languages in use today. That's

1:17

a small sample of the 31,000 that

1:19

are estimated to have existed over the

1:21

course of human history. Language

1:24

is a bedrock of human community, and

1:26

most of the time, it's a group

1:28

project. The sounds

1:30

and structures and rules that make up

1:33

a language develop and evolve as people

1:35

communicate. And they change as

1:37

people move to new places, with new ways

1:39

of sharing information. But

1:42

every once in a while, there is a single

1:44

person who really takes charge of

1:46

a language. I'm

1:49

Michelle Cassidy, and this is

1:51

Atlas Obscura, a podcast

1:53

about the world's strange, incredible, and

1:55

wondrous places. Today,

1:57

my fellow Places Editor Jonathan Carey and I are

1:59

bringing you the news. bringing you two stories

2:01

about people who took the creation of language into

2:03

their own hands. The

2:05

first to meet a very real cultural

2:08

need, and the second to populate a

2:10

world of escapist fantasy. Jonathan's

2:12

up first. Take it away.

2:31

As you're driving along the scenic Route 360

2:33

through the town of Von Neuw or Tennessee,

2:36

your eyes will notice a lonely

2:38

museum nestled off in the countryside. It's

2:41

sure to catch the tension of even the weariest of

2:43

travelers. Though unassuming,

2:46

below the name of the building

2:48

are several letters and symbols, not

2:50

immediately recognizable. They need

2:53

to let us curve and bend at strange

2:55

angles, and honestly, they

2:57

look more like letters you would find

2:59

in a mathematic equation than anything

3:01

readable. However,

3:05

quite the opposite is the case. This

3:08

museum preserves the legacy of an indigenous

3:10

written language. Welcome

3:13

to the Sequoia Birthplace Museum. Inside

3:18

are various exhibits that feature more of

3:20

this writing, but one

3:23

exhibit is where our story truly begins.

3:27

Next to a 19th century printing press is a

3:29

diorama of a man traveling. His

3:32

face determined. He

3:35

is dressed in a red and white scarf and he's holding

3:38

what looks like a rubric of sorts. And

3:41

it contains more of those letters. This

3:45

is Sequoia. And what

3:47

he is holding is a depiction of the 86 character

3:50

Cherokee writing system he invented more than

3:53

a century ago. This

3:55

is the story of Sequoia and his

3:57

journey to create a writing system for the

3:59

Spoke in Cherokee language. We

4:08

don't know much about Sequoia's origins, but

4:11

what we do know is that he was born sometime

4:13

between 1765 and 1776 along the shores of the

4:15

Little Tennessee River in the town

4:21

of Tuskegee. Exceptionally

4:23

bright from a very early age, Sequoia

4:26

began tinkering with a writing system for

4:28

the Cherokee language around 1809 despite

4:32

opposition from fellow Cherokee. However,

4:35

Sequoia's work would be interrupted when he was called

4:38

to fight for the Cherokee regiment during the War

4:40

of 1812. But

4:43

it was during this conflict that

4:45

Sequoia truly recognized the importance of a

4:47

written language. You

4:50

see, Sequoia and his fellow Cherokee

4:52

warriors could not write home to their families,

4:55

nor could they read military orders or

4:58

even journal their experiences. It

5:01

was this event and spark that

5:04

sent Sequoia on a 12-year journey to

5:06

perfect the writing system. Now,

5:10

most languages are oral traditions

5:12

passed on through various generations,

5:15

but other 7,000 or so languages in

5:17

the world today, only

5:19

around 4,000 have a writing

5:21

system. Sequoia

5:24

created this system by studying the sound

5:26

patterns of the Cherokee language and

5:29

how those patterns formed words. He

5:31

even taught his daughter the writing system. But

5:35

despite this noble decade-plus

5:37

journey, Sequoia's

5:39

work was not well

5:41

received. In fact, Sequoia

5:45

and his daughter were both put

5:47

on trial for witchcraft by their local chief,

5:50

as many believed they were communicating via

5:52

magic. When Sequoia

5:54

and his daughter were able to successfully

5:56

communicate via letter using the writing system

5:58

under the watch of the American Revolution, for out Cherokee

6:01

warriors, they were found not guilty.

6:04

Sequoia would go on to travel the

6:06

American Southwest, teaching the writing system

6:08

to other Cherokee and showcasing its importance.

6:13

Cherokee Nation formally adopted the writing

6:15

system in 1825. And

6:18

just five years later, President

6:20

Andrew Jackson signed into law the

6:22

Indian Removal Act, which

6:24

forced Native Americans from their ancestral lands.

6:34

The Cherokee population was displaced

6:36

and dispersed across the country.

6:40

And here, Sequoia's writing

6:42

system came in handy. It

6:45

helped various Cherokee Nation members stay

6:47

in contact and maintain a bond

6:49

of solidarity during difficult times.

6:54

The number of Cherokee language speakers began to

6:57

see a decline from 1893 until 1948, when

6:59

the federal government operated several

7:03

boarding schools designed to quote unquote Americanize

7:06

Native American children, causing

7:09

the language to be lost to many. Today,

7:14

it's estimated that there are only around 2,000

7:17

Cherokee speakers worldwide. With

7:20

ongoing efforts to increase the number

7:22

of speakers through various programs and

7:24

organizations, Sequoia's writing system

7:27

is just as important today as

7:29

it was during the 19th century. It

7:49

takes almost an unimaginable amount of

7:51

effort and intelligence to create a

7:53

written language, even when you already have

7:55

a spoken one to start with. People

7:57

are still teaching the Cherokee syllabary building

8:00

on the work that Sequoia started all those

8:02

years ago. Our next

8:04

story is a little less

8:06

grounded in reality. It's

8:09

about a fantastical language called Farksu,

8:11

created in the 1920s

8:13

by a child prodigy. It

8:16

could easily have been lost to time

8:18

if it weren't for the creator's nephew,

8:20

Stefan Cook, who is determined to keep

8:22

his family history from vanishing. On

8:24

December 7th, 1939, Barbara Newhall Follett left

8:26

her apartment at 48 Kent Street in Brookline,

8:28

Massachusetts. She

8:38

was carrying nothing but a notebook and $30 in cash.

8:43

After that night, Barbara was never seen

8:45

or heard from again. On

8:50

its own, this might seem like a pretty straightforward

8:52

missing person case. Barbara

8:55

was 25 years old, a young

8:57

woman leaving but seemed like an

8:59

unhappy marriage. But

9:02

the thing is, she wasn't just any young

9:04

woman. Barbara

9:07

Newhall Follett was a child prodigy who published her

9:09

first novel at the age of 12. She

9:12

wrote stories and poems and invented a

9:14

language for the world that she created.

9:18

The literary world was captivated by

9:20

her potential. And

9:22

then she just vanished.

9:32

Barbara was the child of literary

9:34

critic and editor Wilson Follett and

9:36

children's writer Helen Thomas Follett. Maybe

9:40

influenced by her literary parents, she

9:42

took to the written word quite fast. She

9:45

was crafting her earliest poems at the age

9:47

of 4 and starting work on a novel at just

9:49

8 years old. It's not

9:51

unusual for children to start telling their

9:53

own stories around this age, but Barbara

9:56

was different. She was sitting down at

9:58

her father's typewriter to write a 43-year-old

10:00

book. thousand-word story about a little girl

10:02

who longed for freedom. That

10:05

book was called The House Without Windows. Here's

10:08

how Barbara described it. It

10:10

is about a little girl named Epercip

10:12

who lived on top of a mountain,

10:14

Mount Varkrobis, and was so lonely

10:16

that she went away to live wild. She

10:19

talked to the animals and led a sweet lovely life

10:21

with them, just the kind of life

10:23

that I should like to lead. Her

10:25

parents all tried to catch her with some friends

10:27

of theirs, and every time she

10:30

escaped in some way or another. Slight

10:33

spoiler warning here, but at

10:35

the end of the book

10:37

Epercip eventually disappears altogether. She's

10:39

transformed into a wood nymph. The

10:42

story is slightly haunting, but it

10:45

also appeals to a common childhood

10:47

desire to run away. It also

10:50

unknowingly foreshadowed Barbara's own

10:52

disappearance. At

10:57

the same time she was working on The House

10:59

Without Windows, Barbara started writing

11:01

about an imaginary world that

11:03

she called Farkzolia. Like

11:06

any proper fantasy world, Farkzolia came

11:08

with its own language called Farkzoo,

11:10

which Barbara also developed and kept

11:12

working on until her early 20s.

11:17

Now a lot of the time

11:19

when kids talk about making up a language,

11:22

it's something like Peg Latin or maybe a

11:24

cipher with symbols in place of letters. At

11:27

least that's what it looked like when my friends and

11:29

I made up a secret language to exchange

11:31

notes as kids. But for

11:33

Barbara, this wasn't an afternoon of drawing

11:35

new symbols for the ABCs. She built

11:39

an entirely new language, one

11:41

with symbols and words and

11:43

complex conjugations and syntax. There

11:46

are pages and pages of her notes

11:49

on Farkzoo covering prefixes and suffixes, how

11:51

to form a passive voice or negate

11:53

a word. Like many

11:55

languages, you could ask a question

11:57

by raising your inflection at the end of a sentence.

12:00

but only if the sentence was short.

12:02

There was a much more complicated structure

12:04

for long questions. She

12:07

described different ways of expressing the

12:09

idea of if, depending

12:11

on whether or not the speaker knew the

12:13

outcome they were describing. There

12:15

were special pronouns to use when you're

12:17

speaking about a person or a thing

12:19

that you felt affectionately towards. If

12:22

you look through Barbara's FARCSU vocabulary lists,

12:24

you can see that this language is

12:27

filled with themes of freedom and independence.

12:30

There's vaida, which means to

12:32

go on a beautiful but

12:34

materially useless journey or exploration,

12:36

to wander aimlessly, drift, chase

12:39

the stars, and climb the sky, to run

12:42

away and play with the butterflies. There's

12:45

airene, a word that means

12:47

any stirring, vibrating, throbbing, or

12:49

coursing that denotes life, warmth,

12:51

and aliveness. One

12:54

of my favorite words in FARCSU

12:57

is re-ni, which means

12:59

any assortment of small, bright things,

13:01

like a mosaic or a kaleidoscope in

13:04

your mind or thoughts or

13:06

dreams. Though

13:09

it seemed like Barbara was at the start

13:11

of a promising literary career, real

13:14

life as it so often does

13:16

intruded. In

13:18

1933, a week before her second book

13:20

published, Wilson Follett left his wife and

13:23

daughters behind to marry a younger woman.

13:26

He took his money and his connections to the publishing

13:28

world with him. Barbara,

13:31

now a teenager, was forced to find

13:33

work as a secretary. At

13:35

the time, she wrote, "'My dreams are

13:38

going through their death flurries.'" Despite

13:48

it all, Barbara kept writing, and

13:50

eventually she found a partner in outdoorsman

13:53

Nickerson Rogers. They

13:55

hiked a portion of the Appalachian Trail through

13:57

New England, then traveled to Europe for excursions

14:00

in Mallorca and the Swiss Alps. Eventually,

14:02

they returned to the States, where they

14:04

got married. Barbara,

14:06

the former child prodigy, was

14:08

now 20 years old. She

14:11

was often unhappy and plagued

14:14

by fears that her husband was about to leave

14:16

her just like her father had. Five

14:19

years into their marriage, Barbara and Nick had

14:21

a fight. It was

14:23

so bad that it led to her walking out the

14:25

door, never to be seen again.

14:31

Despite her previous fame, Barbara's

14:33

disappearance wasn't talked about very much

14:35

at the time. Nick

14:38

waited two whole weeks to go to the

14:40

police and another four months to file an

14:42

official missing person bulletin. He

14:44

claimed that he was waiting for Barbara to

14:47

simply walk back through the door, but

14:50

she didn't, and no

14:52

bodies turned up in the local morgue

14:54

matching her description. Barbara's

14:57

family didn't give up hope that she would

14:59

be found. A year

15:01

after her disappearance, Barbara's father published a

15:03

letter in the Atlantic imploring his daughter

15:05

to come home. 13

15:08

years later, her mother was still pressuring the

15:10

police to find out what had happened to

15:12

Barbara. There

15:24

are theories, of course. Some

15:27

say that she started over somewhere else under

15:29

a brand new identity. Others

15:32

believe that she simply died. In

15:36

2019, writer Daniel Mills claimed that he had

15:38

gathered enough evidence to believe that Barbara's body

15:40

had been recovered near a cabin in New

15:43

Hampshire in 1948, but

15:46

he said at the time it had been identified

15:48

as a different missing woman. We'll

15:50

likely never know the exact

15:52

truth of what happened to

15:55

Barbara Newhall Follett. What we

15:57

do know is that after her death, attention

15:59

eventually did... turn back to her writing. The

16:02

last novel that she wrote, published after her

16:04

death, was called Lost Island. It's

16:07

set around a couple who found themselves shipwrecked

16:09

on a deserted island. When

16:12

they were eventually discovered, the

16:15

woman didn't want to go back to

16:17

civilization. All

16:24

of Barbara's stories were linked together by

16:26

a common thread, a longing

16:28

for freedom and separation from the rest

16:31

of the world. The

16:33

language that she created was filled

16:35

with words for walking and wandering

16:37

and celebrating the conditions of being

16:39

alive and alone. That

16:42

her life ended off the page,

16:44

fading into the world itself, feels

16:47

like it could have come straight out of one of her

16:49

own poems. I

17:04

wanted to drop a note at the end

17:06

here to say this was Jonathan Carey's final

17:08

episode on the podcast. He's been

17:11

with us for everything from traveling trees

17:13

to a big brawl of twine. Thank

17:16

you, Jonathan, so much for all the stories you've

17:18

made with us. We can't wait to see what

17:20

stories you tell next. Our

17:29

podcast is a co-production of Atlas Obscura

17:31

and Stitcher Studios. Our

17:33

production team includes... Dylan Thras

17:35

Doug Baldinger Chris Naka Camille

17:38

Stanley Johanna Mayer Baudelaire

17:41

Gabby Gladney Our technical director

17:43

is... Casey Holford This

17:45

episode was sound designed by... Manolo

17:47

Morales And mixed by... Luce

17:50

Fleming Our theme and end credit music

17:52

is by Sam Tindall. I'm

17:54

Michelle Cassidy, wishing you all the wonder

17:56

in the world. I

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