Ti Lobo and Chibinho, Heroes of Cape Verdean Identity

Abstract

Even though portuguese remains as the only official language in the archipelago of Cape Verde, the creole spreads out through all the territory as the people’s common language and expression. The advocacy and subsequent attempts to introduce the UNACAW (Unified Alphabet for the Capeverdian Writing) / ALUPEC (Alfabeto Unificado para a Escrita do Cabo-verdiano) as an alphabet that could render creole writing as standard and as such become ex cathedra, have been in the past few years, causing some friction by means of debate amongst the archipelago scholars. A group of young people decided to give good use to the UNACAW /ALUPEC by intertwining tradition with information, conveying thus the first Capeverdian comic book in creole. The animus of this contribution is to discern the visual strategies used to expedite both the learning and structural processes of the written creole within the younger (and older) layer of the
Capeverdian community.