Editing Literacy (section)

==Historical overview==
{{See also|History of writing|History of education}}
===Origins===
Script is thought to have developed independently at least five times in human history: in [[Mesopotamia]], [[Egypt]], the [[Indus civilization]], lowland [[Mesoamerica]], and [[China]].<ref name="Chrisomalis-2009">{{Cite book |last=Chrisomalis |first=Stephen |title=The Cambridge Handbook of Literacy |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2009 |editor-last=Olsen |editor-first=D. |pages=59–74 |chapter=The Origins and Coevolution of Literacy and Numeracy |editor-last2=Torrance |editor-first2=N.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Writing Systems |url=http://hkotek.com/teaching/intro2015/week5-writing-systems.pdf |access-date=5 August 2018}}</ref>

[[File:Bill of sale Louvre AO3765.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Bill of sale of a male slave and a building in [[Shuruppak]], [[Sumer]]ian tablet, {{circa|2600 BCE}}]]

Between 3500 BCE and 3000 BCE, in southern Mesopotamia, the ancient Sumerians [[History of writing|invented writing]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Harari |first=Yuval Noah |title=Sapiens |year=2014 |publisher=Penguin Random House |isbn=978-0-771-03851-8 |page=137}}</ref> During this era, literacy was "a largely functional matter, propelled by the need to manage the new quantities of information and the new type of governance created by trade and large scale production".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Easton |first=P. |title=Sustaining Literacy in Africa: Developing a Literate Environment |publisher=UNESCO Press |location=Paris |pages=46–56 |chapter=History and spread of literacy}}</ref> Early writing systems first emerged as a recording system in which people used tokens with impressed markings to manage trade and agricultural production.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Schmandt-Besserat |first=D. |year=1978 |title=The earliest precursor of writing |journal=[[Scientific American]] |volume=238 |issue=6 |pages=38–47 |bibcode=1978SciAm.238f..50S |doi=10.1038/scientificamerican0678-50 |s2cid=121339828}}</ref> The token system served as a precursor to early [[cuneiform]] writing once people began recording information on clay tablets. [[Proto-Cuneiform]] texts exhibit not only numerical signs but also [[ideograms]] depicting objects being counted.<ref name="Chrisomalis-2009" /> Though the traditional view had been that cuneiform literacy was restricted to a class of scribes, [[assyriologists]] including Claus Wilcke and Dominique Charpin have argued that functional literacy was somewhat widespread by the [[First Babylonian dynasty|Old Babylonian]] period.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Charpin |first=Dominique |title=Writing, Law, and Kingship in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia |date=2010-11-15 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-10159-0 |pages=7–24}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Veldhuis |first=Niek |url=https://melc.berkeley.edu/Web_Veldhuis/articles/Veldhuis_OHCC.pdf |title=The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture |chapter=Levels of Literacy |year=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-191-74359-7 |pages=68–73 |access-date=17 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211217084942/https://melc.berkeley.edu/Web_Veldhuis/articles/Veldhuis_OHCC.pdf |archive-date=17 December 2021 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Nonetheless, professional scribes became central to law, finances, accounting, government, administration, medicine, magic, divination, literature, and prayers.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2011 |editor-last=Radner |editor-first=K. |editor-last2=Robson |editor-first2=E.}}</ref>

[[Egyptian hieroglyphs]] emerged between 3300 BCE and 3100 BCE; the iconography emphasized power among royals and other elites. The Egyptian hieroglyphic writing system was the first notation system to have [[phonetic]] values; these symbols are called [[Phonogram (linguistics)|phonograms]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=The Evolution of Writing |first=Denise|last=Schmandt-Besserat |url=https://sites.utexas.edu/dsb/tokens/the-evolution-of-writing/ |access-date=2023-12-21}}</ref>

Writing in lowland Mesoamerica was first used by the [[Olmec]] and [[Zapotec civilization|Zapotec]] civilizations in 900–400 BCE. These civilizations used [[glyph]]ic writing and bar-and-dot numerical notation systems for purposes related to royal iconography and calendar systems.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Pohl |first1=Mary E. D. |last2=Pope |first2=Kevin O. |last3=von Nagy |first3=Christopher |date=2002-12-06 |title=Olmec Origins of Mesoamerican Writing |url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1078474 |journal=Science |volume=298 |issue=5600 |pages=1984–1987 |doi=10.1126/science.1078474 |pmid=12471256 |bibcode=2002Sci...298.1984P |s2cid=19494498 |issn=0036-8075|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

The earliest written notations in China date back to the [[Shang dynasty]] in 1200 BCE. These systematic notations, inscribed on bones, recorded sacrifices made, tributes received, and animals hunted, which were activities of the elite. These oracle-bone inscriptions were the early ancestors of modern Chinese script and contained [[logosyllabic]] script and numerals. By the time of the consolidation of the Chinese Empire during the [[Qin dynasty|Qin]] and [[Han dynasty|Han]] dynasties ({{circa|200 BCE|lk=no}}), written documents were central to the formation and policing of a hierarchical bureaucratic governance structure reinforced through law. Within this legal order, written records kept track of and controlled citizen movements, created records of misdeeds, and documented the actions and judgments of government officials.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Barbieri-Low |first1=A. |title=Law, state, and society in early Imperial China: Study and translation of the legal texts from Zhangjiashan Tomb no. 247. |last2=Yates |first2=R. |publisher=Brill |year=2015 |location=Leiden}}</ref>

[[Indus script]] is largely pictorial and has not yet been deciphered; as such, it is unknown whether it includes abstract signs. It is thought that they wrote from right to left and that the script is [[logographic]]. Because it has not been deciphered, linguists disagree on whether it is a complete and independent writing system; however, it is generally thought to be an independent writing system that emerged in the [[Harappa]] culture.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Farmer |first1=Steve |last2=Sproat |first2=Richard |last3=Witzel |first3=Michael |year=2004 |title=The Collapse of the Indus-Script Thesis: The Myth of a Literate Harappan Civilization |url=https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/ejvs/article/view/620 |journal=Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies |volume=11 |issue=2 |pages=19–57 |doi=10.11588/ejvs.2004.2.620 |s2cid=16097805 |issn=1084-7561}}</ref>

Existing evidence suggests that most early acts of literacy were, in some areas (such as Egypt), closely tied to power and chiefly used for management practices, and probably less than 1% of the population was literate, as it was confined to a very small group.{{cn|date=May 2024}} Scholarship by others, such as Dominique Charpin and a project from the [[European Union]], however, suggest that this was not the case in all ancient societies: both Charpin and the EU's emerging scholarship suggest that writing and literacy were far more widespread in Mesopotamia than scholars previously thought.<ref>{{Citation |title=Reading and Writing in Mesopotamia |url=https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226101590.003.0002 |work=Writing, Law, and Kingship in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia |year=2010 |pages=7–24 |access-date=2023-12-21 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |doi=10.7208/chicago/9780226101590.003.0002 |isbn=978-0-226-10158-3}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |title=Literacy in the Old Babylonian City of Nippur |url=https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/841928 |access-date=2023-12-21 |website=CORDIS |publisher=European Commission |doi=10.3030/841928}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |title=Review of: Writing, Law, and Kingship in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia (translated by Jane Marie Todd) |url=https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2011/2011.06.55/ |journal=Bryn Mawr Classical Review |issn=1055-7660}}</ref>

===Alphabetic writing===
According to social anthropologist [[Jack Goody]], there are two interpretations regarding the origin of the alphabet. Many classical scholars, such as historian [[Ignace Gelb]], credit the Ancient Greeks for creating the first alphabetic system ({{circa|lk=no|750 BCE}}) that used distinctive signs for consonants and vowels. Goody contests:
{{blockquote|The importance of Greek culture of the subsequent history of Western Europe has led to an over-emphasis, by classicists and others, on the addition of specific [[vowel]] signs to the set of [[consonant]]al ones that had been developed earlier in Western Asia.<ref name="Goody-1987">{{Cite book |last=Goody |first=Jack |title=The interface between the written and the oral |year=1999 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-33268-2 |edition=Repr. |pages=40–51}}</ref>}}

Many scholars argue that the [[ancient Semitic-speaking peoples]] of northern [[Canaan]] invented the [[Abjad|consonantal alphabet]] as early as 1500 BCE. Much of this theory's development is credited to English archeologist [[Flinders Petrie]], who, in 1905, came across a series of Canaanite inscriptions in the turquoise mines of [[Serabit el-Khadem]]. Ten years later, English Egyptologist [[Alan Gardiner]] reasoned that these letters contain an alphabet as well as references to the Canaanite goddess [[Asherah]]. In 1948, [[William F. Albright]] deciphered the text using new evidence, including a series of inscriptions from [[Ugarit]]. Discovered in 1929 by French archaeologist [[Claude F. A. Schaeffer]], some of these inscriptions were mythological texts (written in an early Canaanite dialect) that consisted of a 30-letter [[cuneiform]] consonantal alphabet.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ras Shamra Tablet Inventory |url=https://voices.uchicago.edu/rsti/iug/introduction/ |access-date=2023-12-22 |website=voices.uchicago.edu}}</ref>

Another significant discovery was made in 1953 when three arrowheads were uncovered, each containing identical Canaanite inscriptions from 12th century BCE. According to [[Frank Moore Cross]], these inscriptions consisted of alphabetic signs that originated during the transitional development from pictographic script to a linear alphabet. Moreover, he asserts, "These inscriptions also provided clues to extend the decipherment of earlier and later alphabetic texts".<ref name="Cross-1980">{{Cite journal |last=Cross |first=Frank Moore |title=Newly Found Inscriptions in Old Canaanite and Early Phoenician Scripts |journal=Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research |year=1980 |volume=238 |issue=Spring, 1980 |pages=1–20 |doi=10.2307/1356511 |jstor=1356511 |s2cid=222343641}}</ref>

The Canaanite script's consonantal system inspired alphabetical developments in later systems. During the Late [[Bronze Age]], successor alphabets appeared throughout the [[Mediterranean Basin|Mediterranean]] region and were used in [[Phoenician language|Phoenician]], [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], and [[Aramaic]].<ref name=":0" />

According to Goody, these cuneiform scripts may have influenced the development of the Greek alphabet several centuries later. Historically, the Greeks contended that their writing system was modeled after the Phoenicians. However, many Semitic scholars now believe that [[Ancient Greek]] is more consistent with an early form  of Canaanite that was used {{circa|lk=no|1100 BCE}}. While the earliest Greek inscriptions are dated circa 8th century BCE, [[Epigraphy|epigraphical]] comparisons to [[Proto-Canaanite]] suggest that the Greeks may have adopted the consonantal alphabet as early as 1100 BCE and later "added in five characters to represent vowels".<ref name="Goody-1987" />

Phoenician, which is considered to contain the first linear alphabet, rapidly spread to Mediterranean port cities in northern Canaan.<ref name="Cross-1980" /> Some archeologists believe that Phoenician influenced the Hebrew and Aramaic alphabets, as these languages evolved during the same time period, share similar features, and are commonly categorized into the same language group.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=McCarter |first=P. Kyle |date=September 1974 |title=The Early Diffusion of the Alphabet  |journal=The Biblical Archaeologist |volume=37 |issue=3 |pages=54–68 |doi=10.2307/3210965 |jstor=3210965 |s2cid=126182369 |issn=0006-0895}}</ref>

When the Israelites migrated to Canaan between 1200 and 1000 BCE, they adopted a variation of the Canaanite alphabet. [[Baruch ben Neriah]], Jeremiah's scribe, used this alphabet to create the later scripts of the [[Old Testament]]. The early Hebrew alphabet was prominent in the Mediterranean region until [[Neo-Babylonian]] rulers exiled the Jews to [[Babylon]] in the 6th century BCE. It was then that the new script ([[Square Hebrew]]) emerged, and the older one rapidly died out.<ref name="Goody-1987" />

The [[Aramaic alphabet]] also emerged sometime between 1200 and 1000 BCE. Although early examples are scarce, archeologists have uncovered a wide range of later Aramaic texts, written as early as the seventh century BCE. In the [[Near East]], it was common to record events on clay using the [[cuneiform]] script; however, writing [[Aramaic]] on leather parchments became common during the [[Neo-Assyrian]] empire. With the rise of the [[Persians]] in the 5th century BCE, [[Achaemenid]] rulers adopted Aramaic as the "diplomatic language".<ref name="Goody-1987" />

[[Darius the Great]] standardized Aramaic, which became the [[Imperial Aramaic]] script. This Imperial Aramaic alphabet rapidly spread: west, to the Kingdom of Nabataea, then to the [[Sinai Peninsula|Sinai]] and [[Arabian Peninsula|Arabian]] peninsulas, eventually making its way to Africa; and east, where it later influenced the development of the [[Brahmi script]] in India. Over the next few centuries, Imperial Aramaic script in Persia evolved into [[Pahlavi scripts|Pahlavi]], "as well as for a range of alphabets used by early [[Turkish peoples|Turkish]] and [[Mongol]] tribes in [[Siberia]], [[Mongolia]] and [[Turkestan]]".<ref name="Goody-1987" /> During this period, literacy spread among the merchant classes, and 15-20% of the total population may have been literate.{{citation needed|date=September 2023}}

The Aramaic language declined with the spread of [[Islam]], which was accompanied by the spread of [[Arabic]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2013-09-06 |title=The growth and decline of the Aramaic language |url=https://apnews.com/article/3ea7983eb9ad49f089fbccc27d8a1206 |access-date=2023-12-22 |website=AP News}}</ref>

===Antiquity===
Until recently, it was thought that the majority of people were illiterate in the classical world,{{efn|See for example: Harris, 1991.{{refn|{{Cite book |last=Harris |first=William V. |title=Ancient literacy |year=1991 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-03381-8 |location=Cambridge, MA}}}}}} though recent work challenges this perception.{{undue|date=May 2024}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wright |first=Brian J. |year=2015 |title=Ancient Literacy in New Testament Research: Incorporating a Few More Lines of Enquiry |url=https://www.academia.edu/13211795 |journal=Trinity Journal |volume=36 |pages=161–189}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Literacy in Ancient Everyday Life |publisher=De Gruyter |year=2018 |isbn=978-3-110-59188-0 |editor-last=Kolb |editor-first=Anne |location=Boston}}</ref> Anthony DiRenzo asserts that [[Culture of ancient Rome|Roman society]] was "a civilization based on the book and the register" and that "no one, either free or slave, could afford to be illiterate".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Di Renzo |first=Anthony |year=2000 |title=His master's voice: Tiro and the rise of the roman secretarial class |url=http://faculty.ithaca.edu/direnzo/docs/scholarship/mastersvoice.pdf |journal=Journal of Technical Writing and Communication |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=155–168 |doi=10.2190/b4yd-5fp7-1w8d-v3uc |s2cid=153369618}}</ref> Similarly, Dupont points out, "The written word was all around them, in both public and private life: laws, calendars, regulations at shrines, and funeral epitaphs were engraved in stone or bronze. The Republic amassed huge archives of reports on every aspect of public life."<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Dupont |first1=Florence |title=Daily life in ancient Rome |last2=Dupont |first2=Florence |year=1997 |publisher=Blackwell |isbn=978-0-631-19395-1 |edition=Repr. |location=Oxford |pages=223}}</ref> The imperial civilian administration produced masses of documentation used in judicial, fiscal, and administrative matters, as did the municipalities. The army kept extensive records relating to supply and duty rosters and submitted reports. Merchants, shippers, and landowners (and their personal staffs), especially of the larger enterprises, must have been literate.{{citation needed|date=September 2023}}

In the late fourth century, the [[Desert Father]] [[Pachomius]] would expect the literacy of a candidate for admission to his monasteries:{{efn|[[Pachomius]], Rule 139.}}
<blockquote>They shall give him twenty Psalms or two of the Apostles' epistles or some other part of Scripture. And if he is illiterate he shall go at the first, third and sixth hours to someone who can teach and has been appointed for him. He shall stand before him and learn very studiously and with all gratitude. The fundamentals of a syllable, the verbs and nouns shall all be written for him and even if he does not want to he shall be compelled to read.</blockquote>

During the 4th and 5th centuries, the Church made efforts to ensure a better clergy, especially the bishops, who were expected to have a classical education—the hallmark of a socially acceptable person in higher society.{{Citation needed|date=June 2020}} Even after the remnants of the [[Western Roman Empire]] fell in the 470s, literacy continued to be a distinguishing mark of the elite, as communication skills were still important in political and church life (bishops were largely drawn from the senatorial class) in a new cultural synthesis that made "Christianity the Roman religion".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Elsner |first=Jaś |title=Imperial Rome and Christian triumph: the art of the Roman Empire AD 100-450 |year=1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-192-84201-5 |pages=141}}</ref> However, these skills were less needed in the absence of a large imperial administrative apparatus whose middle and top echelons were dominated by the elite.{{efn|This connection is pursued in [[Alan K. Bowman]] and [[Greg Woolf]], eds., ''Literacy and Power in the Ancient World'', (Cambridge) 1994.}} Even so, in pre-modern times, it is unlikely that literacy was found in more than about 30–40% of the population. During the [[Dark Ages (historiography)|Dark Ages]], the highest percentage of literacy was found among the clergy and monks, as they made up much of the staff needed to administer the states of western Europe.{{citation needed|date=September 2023}}

An abundance of graffiti written in the [[Nabataean script]] dating back to the beginning of the first millennium CE has been taken to imply a relatively high degree of literacy among the general population in the ancient Arabic-speaking world.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Macdonald |first=M. C. A. |date=2010 |title=Ancient Arabia and the written word |journal=Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies |volume=40 |pages=8–9 |jstor=41224041}}</ref>

=== Medieval and early modern eras ===
The rates and forms of literacy in the European Medieval period vary and are controversial: historian Elaine Treharne writes of "a complex era of strategic literacy, generic fluidity, and linguistic competencies beyond our own experiences."<ref >"However, the medieval period in its entirety yields far more when seen holistically, like the manuscripts and texts themselves, without our false categorizations of secular versus religious, French versus English, educated versus uneducated, written versus oral, central versus marginal. Our own hierarchies are in urgent need of reassessment if we are to understand a complex era of strategic literacy, generic fluidity, and linguistic competencies beyond our own experiences." {{cite journal |last1=Treharne |first1=Elaine |title=The vernaculars of medieval England, 1170-1350 |journal=The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Culture |date=24 March 2011 |pages=217–236 |doi=10.1017/CCOL9780521856898.011|isbn=978-0-521-85689-8 }}</ref> Historian Malcolm Parkes contrasts the different expertise of the professionally literate class, cultivated readers, and pragmatic readers.<ref>"At least by the twelfth century, a more complex hierarchy of literacies arose. Thus, the literacy of the professionally literate class sits at the pinnacle of a triangle, under which are the literacy of the "cultivated reader" or aristocratic non-professional and the still more limited literacy of the "pragmatic reader" who reads and writes in the course of conducting his trade." {{cite book |title=The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain |date=17 July 2017 |doi=10.1002/9781118396957.wbemlb561}}</ref> Historian Mark Hailwood suggests another two type of near-literacy in Early Modern England, of "abcederian literates" who could spell out words to read, and of people who knew the letters though not words, were particularly common in Southern English rural areas: 50% of husbandmen could either sign their name or provide an initial.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hailwood |first1=Mark |title=Rethinking Literacy in Rural England, 1550–1700 |journal=Past & Present |date=24 July 2023 |issue=260 |pages=38–70 |doi=10.1093/pastj/gtac019}}</ref>

Post-Antiquity illiteracy was made worse by the lack of a suitable writing medium, as when the Western Roman Empire collapsed, the import of [[papyrus]] to Europe ceased. Since papyrus perishes easily and does not last well in the wetter European climate, [[parchment]] was used, which was expensive and accessible only by the church and the wealthy. [[Paper]] was introduced into Europe via Spain in the 11th century and spread north slowly over the next four centuries. Literacy saw a resurgence as a result, and by the 15th century, paper was widespread.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=History of publishing → Medieval, Manuscripts, Scriptoria |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/publishing/The-medieval-book |access-date=2023-12-22}}</ref>

Estimates of literacy rates vary by time, class, location, sex and reliability: "Unfortunately, there is no statistical information that allows generalizations to be made in terms of numerical proportions or percentages, either for rates of literacy among the medieval population or for annual book production."<ref name=clanchy/> 

However, here are some indicative estimates. Rates are often extrapolated from the number of people who can sign their name on official documents. First, rough estimates by economic historian Robert Allen, based on the urban/rural split of the population:<ref name=allen>{{cite journal |last1=Allen |first1=Robert C. |title=Progress and Poverty in Early Modern Europe |journal=The Economic History Review |date=2003 |volume=56 |issue=3 |pages=403–443 |doi=10.1111/j.1468-0289.2003.00257.x |jstor=3698570 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3698570 |issn=0013-0117}}</ref>
{| class="wikitable"
|+ European adult literacy 
|-
! Nation !! 1500 (%) !! 1800 (%)
|-
| England || 6 || 53
|-
| Netherlands || 10|| 68
|-
| Belgium || 10||49
|-
| Germany || 6 || 35
|-
| France || 7 || 37
|-
| Austria/Hungary || 6 || 21
|-
| Poland || 6 || 21
|-
| Italy || 9 || 22
|-
| Spain || 9 || 20
|}
However:
* In the late 1200s, there were 1,500 notaries in Milan, over 1% of the population, for drawing up contracts.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Britnell |first1=Richard |chapter=Bureaucracy and Literacy |title=A Companion to the Medieval World |date=26 March 2009 |pages=413–434 |doi=10.1002/9781444324198.ch20|isbn=978-1-4051-0922-2 }}</ref>{{rp|421}}
* "By 1300, 'everyone knew someone who could read', and there were books in every church and every village."<ref name=clanchy>{{cite book |last1=Clanchy |first1=Michael |chapter=Parchment and Paper: Manuscript Culture 1100–1500 |title=A Companion to the History of the Book |date=16 September 2019 |pages=219–233 |doi=10.1002/9781119018193.ch15}}</ref>
* By 1500, in England, "probably more than half the population could read, though not necessarily also write."<ref name=clanchy/> [[Thomas More]] in 1533 claimed that up to 60% of the population could read English, a figure supported by some studies of London but not by others. One study estimates that in the city of York in 1500, about 25% of upper and middle class people were literate.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Moran |first1=J. Hoeppner |title=Literacy and Education In Northern England, 1350-1550: A Methodological Inquiry |journal=Northern History |date=June 1981 |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=1–23 |doi=10.1179/nhi.1981.17.1.1}}</ref>  This contrasts with Stevens' estimates of male literacy of 10% by the start of the century (with almost no female literacy)), 20% by the end, and 45% by the end of the 1600s.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Stephens |first1=W. B. |title=Literacy in England, Scotland, and Wales, 1500-1900 |journal=History of Education Quarterly |date=1990 |volume=30 |issue=4 |pages=545–571 |doi=10.2307/368946 |jstor=368946 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/368946 |issn=0018-2680}}</ref> 
* In Venice in 1587, 33% of men were estimated as literate.<ref name=allen/>

Inspired by the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]], [[Sweden]] implemented programs in 1723 aimed at making the population fully literate.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Vincent |first=David |editor-first1=John L. |editor-first2=Eileen H. |editor-last1=Rury |editor-last2=Tamura |title=The Oxford Handbook of the History of Education |year=2019 |chapter=The Modern History of Literacy |chapter-url=https://oro.open.ac.uk/69072/3/69072.pdf |access-date=December 21, 2023 |at=7 |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199340033.013.30 |isbn=978-0-199-34003-3 }}</ref> Other countries implemented similar measures at this time. These included Denmark in 1739, Poland in 1783, and France in 1794/5.<ref name=":1" />

Literacy was well established in early 18th century England, when books geared towards children became far more common. Near the end of the century, as many as 50 were printed every year in major cities around England.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The origins of children's literature |url=https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-origins-of-childrens-literature |access-date=2022-04-22 |website=British Library |archive-date=1 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200301053319/https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-origins-of-childrens-literature |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In [[Edo-period]] Japan, literacy in the three major cities has been estimated at 70% for men, 40% for females, but 1% in the country areas.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Tsujimoto |first1=Masashi |title=Maturing of a Literate Society--Literacy and Education in the Edo Peried (17th-19th century) |journal=Journal of Japanese Trade & Industry |date=2000 |url=http://scholars.lib.ntu.edu.tw/handle/123456789/290366}}</ref>

===Industrialization===
{{Further|Industrial Revolution}}
In the 19th century, reading would become even more common in the United Kingdom. Public notes, broadsides, handbills, catchpennies and printed songs would have been usual street literature before newspapers became common. Other forms of popular reading material included advertising for events, theaters, and goods for sale.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Street literature |url=https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/street-literature |access-date=2022-04-22 |website=British Library}}</ref> In the late 19th century, gas and electric lighting were becoming more common in private homes, replacing candlelight and oil lamps, enabling reading after dark and increasing the appeal of literacy.<ref name="British-Library-Victorian-Readers" />

In his 1836/1837 ''Pickwick Papers'' Charles Dickens's said that:
{{blockquote|even the common people, both in town and country, are equally intense in their admiration. Frequently, have we seen the butcher-boy, with his tray on his shoulder, reading with the greatest avidity the last "Pickwick"; the footman (whose fopperies are so inimitably laid bare), the maidservant, the chimney sweep, all classes, in fact, read "Boz".<ref name="British-Library-Victorian-Readers">{{Cite web |title=Victorian readers |url=https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/victorian-readers |access-date=2022-04-22 |website=British Library |archive-date=19 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220219045156/https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/victorian-readers |url-status=dead }}</ref>}}

From the mid-19th century onward, the [[Second Industrial Revolution]] saw technological improvements in paper production. The new distribution networks, enabled by improved roads and rail, resulted in an increased capacity to supply printed material. Social and educational changes increased the demand for reading matter, as rising literacy rates, particularly among the middle and working classes, created a new mass market for printed material.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Print culture |url=https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/print-culture |access-date=2022-04-22 |website=British Library}}</ref> Wider schooling helped increase literacy rates, which in turn helped lower the cost of publication.<ref name="British-Library-Victorian-Readers" />

Unskilled labor forces were common in Western Europe, and, as British industry improved, more engineers and skilled workers who could handle technical instructions and complex situations were needed. Literacy was essential to be hired.<ref name="Hamerow-1998">{{Cite book |last=Hamerow |first=Theodore S. |title=The birth of a new Europe: state and society in the 19. century |year=1998 |publisher=University of North Carolina Pr |isbn=978-0-807-84239-3 |location=Chapel Hill |pages=148–174}}</ref> A senior government official told Parliament in 1870:
{{blockquote|Upon the speedy provision of elementary education depends our industrial prosperity. It is of no use trying to give technical teaching to our citizens without elementary education; uneducated labourers—and many of our labourers are utterly uneducated—are, for the most part, unskilled labourers, and if we leave our work–folk any longer unskilled, notwithstanding their strong sinews and determined energy, they will become overmatched in the competition of the world.<ref name="Hamerow-1998" />{{rp|159}}}}

The skills of reading and writing are not the same. In Spain, the total rate of literacy between 1841 and 1860 was constant at almost 25%: in 1841 most of the literate could read but not write, but by 1860 most could read and write.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Frago |first1=Antonio Viñao |title=The History of Literacy in Spain: Evolution, Traits, and Questions |journal=History of Education Quarterly |date=1990 |volume=30 |issue=4 |pages=573–599 |doi=10.2307/368947 |jstor=368947 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/368947 |issn=0018-2680}}</ref>

=== Modern proliferation (1950 – present) ===
[[File:Figure 1 Adult literacy rates have increased Reading the past writing the futureUPDATED.svg|thumb|Adult literacy rates have increased at a constant pace since 1950.]]
Data published by [[UNESCO]] shows that the worldwide literacy rate among adults has increased, on average, by 5 percentage points every decade since 1950, from 55.7% in 1950 to 86.2% in 2015. Due to rapid [[population growth]], while the percentage of adults who were illiterate decreased, the actual number of illiterate adults increased from 700 million in 1950 to 878 million in 1990, before starting to decrease and falling to 745 million by 2015. The number of illiterate adults remains higher than in 1950, "despite decades of universal education policies, literacy interventions and the spread of print material and information and communications technology (ICT)".<ref name="UNESCO-2017">{{Cite book |last=UNESCO |url=http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002475/247563e.pdf |title=Reading the past, writing the future: Fifty years of promoting literacy |publisher=UNESCO |year=2017 |isbn=978-9-231-00214-4 |pages=21–23, 26}}</ref>

=== Regional disparities ===
Available global data indicates significant variations in literacy rates between world regions. North America, Europe, [[West Asia]], and [[Central Asia]] have almost achieved full literacy for men and women aged 15 or older. Most countries in [[East Asia and the Pacific]], as well as [[Latin America and the Caribbean]], have adult literacy rates over 90%.<ref name="UNESCO-2015">{{Cite journal |last=UNESCO Institute for Statistics |date=September 2015 |title=Adult and Youth Literacy |url=http://www.uis.unesco.org/literacy/Documents/fs32-2015-literacy.pdf |journal=UIS Fact Sheet |volume=32 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160315043900/http://www.uis.unesco.org/literacy/Documents/fs32-2015-literacy.pdf |archive-date=15 March 2016 |access-date=2 May 2016}}</ref> In other regions, illiteracy persists at higher rates; as of 2013, the adult literacy rate in [[South Asia]] and [[North Africa]] was 67.55% and 59.76% in [[Sub-Saharan Africa]].<ref name="UIS">{{Cite web |last=UIS |title=Education: Literacy rate |url=http://data.uis.unesco.org/Index.aspx?queryid=166# |access-date=22 May 2016 |website=data.uis.unesco.org}}</ref>{{Failed verification|date=September 2023}}
[[File:Figure 5 Literacy has rapidly spread Reading the past writing the future.svg|left|thumb|Literacy has rapidly spread in several regions over the last twenty-five years.]]
In much of the world, high youth literacy rates suggest that illiteracy will become less common as more educated younger generations replace less educated older ones.<ref name="Wagner-2016">{{Cite book |last1=Wagner |first1=Daniel A. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k0mUCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA97 |title=Childhood and adolescence: cross-cultural perspectives and applications |last2=Tuz Zahra |first2=Fatima |last3=Lee |first3=Jinsol |year=2016 |publisher=Praeger |isbn=978-1-440-83223-9 |editor-last=Gielen |editor-first=Uwe P. |edition=2nd |pages=105–106 |chapter=Literacy Development: Global Research and Policy Perspectives |editor-last2=Roopnarine |editor-first2=Jaipaul L.}}</ref> However, in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where the vast majority of the world's illiterate youth live, lower school enrollment implies that illiteracy will persist to a greater degree.<ref name="Wagner-2016" /> According to 2013 data, the youth literacy rate (ages 15 to 24) is 84% in South Asia and North Africa and 70% in sub-Saharan Africa.<ref name="UIS" />

However, the distinction between literacy and illiteracy is not clear-cut. Given that having a literate person in the household confers many of the benefits of literacy, some recent literature in economics, starting with the work of Kaushik Basu and James Foster, distinguishes between a "proximate illiterate" and an "isolated illiterate". A "proximate illiterate" lives in a household with literate members, while an "isolated illiterate" lives in a household where everyone is illiterate. Isolated illiteracy is more common among older populations in wealthier nations, where people are less likely to live in multigenerational households with potentially literate relatives. A 2018/2019 [[UNESCO]] report noted that "conversely, in low and lower middle income countries, isolated illiteracy is concentrated among younger people," along with increased rates among rural populations and women. This evidence indicates that illiteracy is a complex phenomenon with multiple factors impacting rates of illiteracy and the type of illiteracy one may experience.<ref>{{Cite web |year=2018 |title=Global education monitoring report 2019: Migration, displacement and education: building bridges, not walls |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000366946 |access-date=2023-12-22 |website=UNESCO |pages=194–196}}</ref>

Literacy has rapidly spread in several regions in the last twenty-five years,<ref name="UNESCO-2017" /> and the United Nations's global initiative with [[Sustainable Development Goal 4]] is also gaining momentum.<ref>{{Cite web |title=THE 17 GOALS |publisher=Department of Economic and Social Affairs |url=https://sdgs.un.org/goals |access-date=2020-09-22 |website=sdgs.un.org}}</ref>