Someone wrote in [personal profile] some_stars 2013-10-07 12:39 am (UTC)

The Korean drama Tree with Deep Roots, is about the king who invented hangeul (a system of writing which is much easier than the older character-based system) trying to disseminate it to his people, over the vociferous objections of the noble class. In particular (spoilers):

I don't know if it would be sufficiently transformative or textual, but the movie Akeelah and the Bee is about a little girl who competes in the national spelling bee. Akeelah is African-American, and her primary rivals/friends are Latino and Chinese-American.

For written text, many of the slave narratives are deeply concerned with literacy. In particular: Fredrick Douglass' memoirs (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is the most famous, but I believe he wrote three or four different books about his experiences), Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington, and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs.

And on the odder end of the spectrum, you might want to look up the Five Percenters/Nations of Gods and Earths, who involve a lot of wordplay in their theology. (For example, according to the NGE, Allah is an acronym for Arm, Leg, Leg, Arm, Head.)

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