>Come on Jane, the society is not illiterate, its just that most
>people (85%) can't read or write.
That's usually what's meant by an "illiterate society". Not that they don't have reading and writing but that it's a specialism which only a minority can perform. I'm not sure where the 15% figure for literate individuals comes from either, Lhankor Mhy is only one of the many cults who make up the 15% minority and it's the only cult where literacy is required. So I'd put the figure at below 5% including all the people who've learnt just enough to write their own name and read some basic words.
>The ones that can, do it for a
>living, and generally are very, very good at it.
You can make a reasonable living as a scribe in an illiterate society without being particularly good. An average clan will rarely have anyone with a decent written vocabulary and what's more I suspect the commonest written language in 1620's Sartar will be New Pelorian. Simply because there will be more stuff written in that language than anything else and the clans will have grown to distrust Lunar official's translations of official documents. Lunar missionaries will also be the most common source of such learning.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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