The following is an excerpt from an essay about Sequoyah's creation of the Cherokee syllabary.
In the early nineteenth century, a Cherokee silversmith named Sequoyah became convinced that written language was the key to his people's independence. Despite widespread skepticism from his neighbors, who believed writing was a form of sorcery, Sequoyah began experimenting with symbols. He initially tried to create a unique pictogram for every word in the Cherokee language, but he soon realized that memorizing thousands of drawings was impractical.
[1] __________________________________________________ [2] By listening closely to spoken Cherokee, Sequoyah identified eighty-five distinct syllables that made up the entire language. [3] He then assigned a specific character to each syllable, adapting some letters from the English alphabet and inventing others. [4] Within months of introducing this new syllabary in 1821, thousands of Cherokee people learned to read and write, leading to the creation of the Cherokee Phoenix, the first Native American newspaper published in both Cherokee and English.
Which of the following choices, if inserted at underline [1], provides the most effective introduction to the second paragraph?
- AHis analysis of spoken words, including various dialects of the Cherokee nation, were a crucial turning point.
- He subsequently shifted his focus to the individual sounds of the language rather than full words.Answer
- CBecause he realized that a phonetic system would be much simpler to learn.
- DHe decided to analyze the phonetic structure of the language, this breakthrough saved him years of work.