Kingjoe97034 t1_iu8gp8u wrote
Reply to comment by bartolemew in Eli5: How is it possible for someone to speak English, but not be able to read or write it ? by Aboutfun
No, I mean that historically, there is way less need to read on a farm than in a law office. I’m thinking 1820, not 2020.
ZacQuicksilver t1_iubzv9h wrote
Actually, literacy is actually a lot higher in historical England than the records indicate. This is because "literacy" was measured in Latin, not English; and as such there were a significant (likely over 25% of the population) number of "illiterate" people who could read and write English at the equivalent of a modern 8th-grade level.
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