Friday, January 16, 2009

Indian License Plates

The Wichita Bureau tells me something I didn't know before: a number of Indian tribes issue their own license plates--in Oklahoma, at least, and I gather elsewhere as well.

It's not apparent in the samples linked above, but Cherokee (at least) uses a syllabary alphabet that doesn't look the least like English. Does this complicate the reading of Cherokee license plates by outsiders?* Wichita mentions also UCC filings--can you do that in Cherokee? And is confusion part of the purpose? Recall the use of Indian code talkers to hornswoggle the enemy in World War II.
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*And what do they call us, anyway? Gringos? Gadji? Goyim? Auslanders?

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