Query on Literacy

[Chad Douglas Nilep]

The Sino-Japanese word 文化 "culture" is formed with characters meaning WRITING+CHANGE, which may be thought of as "becoming literate." This might relate to the concept you mention, 'both knowledge of the writing system and being "cultured,"' though I don't actually speak Mandarin.

Still, I would caution against making too much of this without investigating the responses of literate native speakers. It's possible that Japanese speaker/writers think about a connection between "culture" and "writing," but it's also possible that they don't.

Similarly, it's possible that English speakers are affected by two historical senses, "ability to write" and "knowledge of (Latin?)." Then again, as a native speaker of English, I was not conciously aware of these reputed historical senses. (Personally, I relate "computer literacy" et al. to the "cultural literacy" movement of the 1980s, which at the time I understood as a metaphor.)

You may have an historical argument - two senses of "literacy" have persisted and to some extend diverged over the centuries - but I'm less sure there's a synchronic story to tell.

Chad D. Nilep
Linguistics
University of Colorado at Boulder
Anthropology
University of Colorado at Denver

---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 17:00:24 -0500
>From: Marcia Farr <farr.18 at osu.edu>  
>Subject: [Linganth] Query on Literacy  
>To: linganth at cc.rochester.edu
>
>Hello everyone,
>
>I have a query having to do with the word "literacy." In English, it 
>originated as "literatus," meaning "knowledge of/ability to write Greek 
>and Latin" (English was the vernacular and not used for writing yet) 
>(see Clanchy chapter in Graff, _Literacy and Social Development in the 
>West_).
>
>This origin may partially explain why the word "literacy" in English is 
>used so variously---sometimes it's used to mean reading/writing, but 
>other times (increasingly) it seems to mean  "knowledge of/competence 
>in" (e.g., scientific literacy, computer literacy, health literacy, 
>visual literacy, etc.), so could be actualized entirely via oral 
>language, with no use of reading or writing at all. In other words, the 
>term is bifurcated into two primary ways of meaning, one of which has to 
>do with a writing system, the other not.
>
>My question is, what are similar terms in other languages? For example, 
>in Spanish the word _alfabetización_ connects literacy directly with 
>(learning) the alphabet, and so to writing/reading. There is no term in 
>Spanish, to my knowledge, for the other meaning in English (knowledge of 
>or competence in). I understand that in Chinese (Mandarin) one word 
>implies both knowledge of the writing system and being "cultured."
>
>Can those of you who know other languages let me know how they specify 
>something like "literacy" (and if they do or don't)? Thanks. I'll post a 
>summary to the list, if you reply to me at <farr.18 at osu.edu>. Or we can 
>have an open discussion on this, if people are interested.
>
>-- 
>Marcia Farr
>Professor, College of Education and Human Ecology
>Adjunct Professor, Department of English
>The Ohio State University
>29 W. Woodruff Ave.
>200 Ramseyer Hall
>Columbus, OH 43210
>
>(614) 292-0095 Office Telephone
>(614) 292-4260 FAX
>
>http://education.osu.edu/mfarr/
>
>