Durbin Feeling (Cherokee: ᏫᎵ ᏚᎥᎢᏅ, romanized: Wili Duvinv; April 2, 1946 – August 19, 2020) was a Cherokee Nation linguist who wrote the primary Cherokee–English dictionary in 1975. He is considered the greatest modern contributor to the preservation of the endangered Cherokee language.^[1][2][3][4]

Feeling was born on April 2, 1946, to Jeff and Elizabeth Feeling in the Little Rock community east of Locust Grove, Oklahoma.^[5][6] Cherokee was his first language; he learned English when he was in the first grade.^[7][4] He began to read Cherokee syllabary when he was 12 years old.^[1]

Feeling graduated from Chilocco Indian School (a Native American boarding school) in 1964 and earned an associate's degree from Bacone College in 1966.^[6][8] He was drafted into the Army in 1967 and served as a door gunner during the Vietnam War.^[6][9] He began to write in Cherokee syllabary when corresponding with his mother while he was in Vietnam.^[4] He was awarded a Purple Heart, and he was honorably discharged in 1970.^[6][7]

Durbin began his work with the Cherokee language when he returned from Vietnam.^[4] In 1975, Feeling co-wrote the first Cherokee–English dictionary.^[4][10] It remains the "standard publication for Cherokee language reference".^[1]

Feeling earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Northeastern State University in 1979 and earned a master's degree in social sciences from the University of California, Irvine in 1992.^{[9][8][11][12]}

Feeling taught Cherokee at universities including the University of Oklahoma, the University of Tulsa, and the University of California.^[1] He authored or contributed to many books and research articles about Cherokee.^[1][4] His materials for Cherokee language learners remain widely used, and many Cherokee language teachers learned directly from Feeling.^[1][4]

Feeling worked for the Cherokee Nation from 1976 to 2020, including in its language translation and technology department.^[7] In the 1980s, he added the Cherokee syllabary to a word processor.^[7] He also contributed to the addition of the Cherokee syllabary to Unicode, which allows it to be widely available on computers and smartphones.^[7]

Feeling was a Baptist lay minister.^[8][13]

He died August 19, 2020.^[1]

For his contributions to the preservation of the Cherokee language and Cherokee culture, Feeling was named a Cherokee National Treasure by the Cherokee Nation. He was also awarded an honorary doctorate by Ohio State University.^[1][9] Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr. has described Feeling as "a modern-day Sequoyah" (referring to the creator of the Cherokee syllabary) and said that "[e]verything we are doing for language revitalization is because of Durbin.”^[1] In 2019, the Cherokee Nation chose Feeling as the first signatory of the Cherokee Language Speakers Roll.^[7][10]

Feeling is the namesake of the Cherokee Nation's language learning center (the Durbin Feeling Language Center)^[14] and 2022 legislation protecting indigenous languages (the Durbin Feeling Native American Languages Act).^[15]

The Sam Noble Museum holds the Durbin Feeling Collection, containing his extensive Cherokee-language materials, including letters written in Cherokee to and from members of Feeling’s family.^[16]

• Feeling, Durbin. Cherokee–English Dictionary. Tahlequah: Cherokee Nation, 1975.
• Feeling, Durbin. A structured approach to learning the basic inflections of the Cherokee verb. Neff Publishing Company, 1994.
• Tuyl, Charles D. Van; Durbin Feeling (1994). An Outline of Basic Verb Inflections of Oklahoma Cherokee. Indian University Press. ISBN 978-0-940392-07-6.
• Pulte, William, and Durbin Feeling. "Morphology in Cherokee Lexicography." Making dictionaries: Preserving indigenous languages of the Americas (2002): 60.
• Feeling, Durbin, ed. See-say-write: Method of Teaching the Cherokee Language. Cherokee Nation, Indian Adult Education, 2002.
• Feeling, Durbin, et al. "A handbook of the Cherokee verb: a preliminary study." Tahlequah, Okla.: Cherokee Heritage Center (2003).
• Feeling, Durbin, et al. "Why revisit published data of an endangered language with native speakers? An illustration from Cherokee." Language Documentation & Conservation 4 (2010): 1-21.
• Feeling, Durbin; Christiansen, Lisa Christine (2015). Cherokee Hymn Book. Penguin International Publishing. ISBN 978-0-692-47367-2.
• Herrick, Dylan, Marcellino Berardo, Durbin Feeling, et al. "Collaborative documentation and revitalization of Cherokee tone." Language Documentation & Conservation 9 (2015): 12-31.
• Feeling, Durbin. Cherokee Narratives: A Linguistic Study. University of Oklahoma Press, 2018.