Sunday, June 13, 2010
Learn Cherokee with BLONDIE
The Cherokee Bilingual Education Program, in Tahlequah, Oklahoma put together this 1975 LEARN CHEROKEE WITH BLONDIE AND DAGWOOD comic book. A complete scan is now at the link courtesy of Ethan Persoff's great Comics With Problems site.
There is no context with this. Why it's important for a white bred, suburban couple to speak Cherokee is mystifying. Why the good people at the Cherokee Bilingual Education Program felt that BLONDIE was the vehicle to educate people, I don't know.
I do know (thanks to the Internet) that that same year saw the publication of a CHEROKEE-ENGLISH DICTIONARY and AN OUTLINE OF CHEROKEE GRAMMAR from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma in Tahlequah.
Perhaps this comic book was only part of the push to get the word out. For all I know there's LEARN CHEROKEE WITH MARY WORTH or LEARN CHEROKEE WITH BEETLE BAILEY out there, waiting to be rediscovered and scanned.
Learn Cherokee with Beetle Bailey exists, because I have a copy.
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