Re: Literacy

From: Andrew Solovay <asolovay_at_...>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 13:23:10 -0700

Jane Williams <janewilliams20_at_...> wrote:
>
> The "monopoly" may be purely Orlanthi, I'm not sure. I can quite see
> them having the idea that writing words down in in some way chaining
> the wind. ...
>
>
> I'd suggest going with the "new" illiteracy idea, though, at least for
> Orlanthi, because as you can see, it does make a huge difference to
> the way things work, and it *is* very much built into the new
> material. (Take a look at the SunSet Leap description for an example).

Perhaps the "Orlanthi are illiterate" thing is relatively new for *Orlanthi*, too? I mean--Orlanthi had an advanced, imperial civilization not too long ago (the EWF). That didn't work out. Perhaps Orlanthi decided that literacy was one of the bad things of the EWF, and consciously suppressed it? They could convince themselves easily enough that good Orlanthi had *never* been literate, except for Lankhor Mhy, who's a stranger, anyway. (And who clearly isn't all *that* literate, since he never spells his name the same way twice...)