Cherokee (Tsalagi, ᏣᎳᎩ) is the sole language of the Southern branch of the Iroquoian family and thus the most divergent member of the group. It is distantly related to Northern Iroquoian languages such as Mohawk, Seneca, and Onondaga, from which it separated thousands of years ago. Its classification within Southern Iroquoian reflects a long separation from the rest of the family, historically centered on the Great Lakes and Northeast.

The Cherokee people traditionally inhabited the southeastern Appalachians, in what are now Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and neighboring states. Today there are three federally recognized tribes: the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetoowah Band, both in Oklahoma, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina. Only a few thousand fluent speakers are estimated to remain, most of them elderly, placing the language in serious danger.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, the Cherokee adopted many elements of Euro-American society and even established a constitutional government and a bilingual newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix. Despite this, in the 1830s the U.S. government forcibly removed them from their ancestral lands in the so-called Trail of Tears, during which thousands died en route to Indian Territory. A portion of the people managed to remain in the North Carolina mountains, giving rise to today's Eastern Band.

Cherokee is classified as an endangered language, with a steadily declining number of native speakers. To reverse this trend, the Cherokee Nation and the Eastern Band have created immersion schools such as the New Kituwah Academy in North Carolina and the Cherokee Nation's immersion program in Oklahoma. Digital resources, syllabary keyboards, and apps are also being developed, along with programs to train new adult speakers.