# All Indo-Iranian languages: how long to full literacy?



## Ironicus

Hello all, svaagatam, salaam!

This question is not about languages as such, but about literacy. Let me set the scene by telling you an anecdote about Korean. Bear with me: you will soon see the relevance. 
Korean used to be written exclusively in Chinese characters, until one day sometime in the 13th century, some monks approached the king and showed him a new way of writing they had devised. Instead of ideographs, they had worked out a way of writing the sounds of their language. They told the king: Using these characters, a bright child can learn to read in a morning; and even the slowest needs no more than a week. 
The king decreed that the system be adopted, and since then, literacy has become as much a habit as breathing for all Koreans. 

Now, this story is particularly relevant for South Asia, where literacy is well behind the world average (according to Wikipedia, for what that's worth).

There are two main forms of writing in use in the region. One is derived from Arabic, and is used by Persian, Urdu, Sindhi and others. The other, which I will refer to as Indic, is derived ultimately I think from Brahui. Devanagari is the flagship of this writing.
The Arabic scripts have no way of representing short vowels, but in other respects are well adapted to the languages they represent. The problems that occur with them arise because of confusion about the phonemes of Arabic and of the other language involved. For example, I always wondered why so many Urdu speakers called their daughters Samina ("Fatty") until I found out they were actually Thamina ("Precious").
The Indic scripts are approximately strictly phonetic: each phoneme has one symbol, and each symbol represents just one phoneme. 
So it would seem to me that it should not be hard at all to teach children in the sub-continent to read and write the way the Koreans did: the bright ones in a morning, even the slowest in a week. But it appears I am missing something.
Literacy is of primary importance to education. It has been shown that  an early advantage in literacy persists right throughout school life, so  a child who learns to read and write a year before his peers remains a  year ahead of them all through school, all other things being equal.  Conversely, a child who is significantly behind his peers in literacy  has a much increased likelihood of failing to achieve minimal  educational standards. 
So I'd like to start with basics. Addressing native speakers of any of the languages ranging from Iran to Sri Lanka and as far as Thailand and using Indic or Arabic scripts or both,  I'd like to ask: how long, in your experience, does it take for a child starting school to become as literate as he or she is fluent in mother tongue? How long does it take, in other words, for a child to be able to write anything he can say, and read anything he can hear? Is it days, weeks, months? 
(Please note that I am not asking about English: only about the indigenous languages of this region.)


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## Alfaaz

Ironicus said:
			
		

> I'd like to ask: how long, in your experience, does it take for a child starting school to become as literate as he or she is fluent in mother tongue? How long does it take, in other words, for a child to be able to write anything he can say, and read anything he can hear? Is it days, weeks, months?


First of all, I'd say that the answer to this (from a medical/psychological/sociological perspective) would obviously be: depends on the individual! 

Here is a general timeline from WebMD and as you will see it suggests that a baby should start saying words at + or -12 months....if not, there might be a problem (for which different tests could be conducted) or it could be the baby is a bit slow but will catch up! 
A similar trend is noted with onset of puberty. Some girls and boys start earlier while others start later. Girls generally tend to start earlier than boys.

Apart from biological reasons, environmental factors also play an important role! 
How much time do the parents spend with their child? Do they try to use different techniques/tools/toys to start getting the child to recognize different objects, words, colors, etc. etc. ? Do they talk to the child (even though the child might not be talking at the time)? 
Are the parents even literate themselves? 
Can they afford to send the child to school? Do they send the child to school? 
What is the standard of the school and teachers? 
There will be those teachers that make learning a fun process and teach with enthusiasm..........but then there will also be those teachers that make school a horrible and miserable experience............which might make the rebellious/dropout of school and illiterate! 





Now if you are trying to suggest or ask with your story about the change of scripts for the Korean language if there is a difference between Arabic/Persian/Urdu/etc. script and Hindi/Devanagri scripts.........then that would also probably have the same answer: it depends on the individual 


Some might learn both scripts, some might find one harder than another
Whatever is "loaded" into the child's brain will probably become "natural" for the person
There have been some psychological studies done (even in Pakistan) which have compared children's performance based on whether they know only English or both Urdu and English
Some studies have shown that those who knew more than one language performed better overall 
Others have shown that there was no significant difference



Lastly, (this might be a bit off-topic) but there are general trends that are observed based on areas. For example, going back to the medical timeline example: it is generally observed that Asians/Middle Eastern/and even perhaps European children generally experience an earlier onset of puberty than Caucasians/other races and ethnic groups. Again, this is a generalization and could not apply to everyone in every case. There will be exceptions. 

Similarly, how long it takes for a person to learn to read and write is a multi-faceted topic.
Edit: Personal Experience: it probably takes about 3-4 days to be able to read and write in Urdu (while fluently speaking the language beforehand), kind of like kids being able to learn from an Arabic qai'dah (even when they don't speak the language)


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## fdb

Japanese is written with thousands of Chinese ideograms. And yet Japan has the highest rate of literacy in the whole world. Education makes the difference.


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## eskandar

I completely agree with *fdb*. Literacy, at least today, has absolutely nothing to do with script and everything to do with the quality of education (and other related factors such as a country's resources, standard of living, etc.) Japanese is an excellent example-- extremely high literacy rate, despite perhaps one of the most complex and difficult writing systems on the planet (including three different sets of scripts, one of which uses the very Chinese ideograms *Ironicus* held up as a hindrance to literacy as pointed out by* fdb*). This is undoubtedly because Japan has one of the highest GDPs out of any country, and a very strong educational system.

Another counter-example would be to look at a country like Somalia, which has one of the lowest rates of literacy on the planet. Yet Somali has a very simple and effective writing system (based on the Latin alphabet) with a pretty much one-to-one correspondence between sounds and letters. Obviously the low rate of literacy in Somalia is not due to the writing system, but to factors like poverty and instability.


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## greatbear

Scripts don't have anything to do with literacy rates, as far as I am concerned. Literacy and the importance accorded to formal education depend on a whole lot of factors: financial comfort, upbringing and environment, government impetus/rules and regulations, culture and what kind of education is being imparted, attitude towards formal schooling, social hierarchy, etc.
Hindi has a very simple script (Devanagari) to learn, and within a day or two someone can easily reproduce in writing what he/she hears and read out loud what he/she reads: so the script's nothing to do with the low literacy rate of the subcontinent.


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## Ironicus

greatbear said:


> Scripts don't have anything to do with literacy rates....
> Hindi has a very simple script (Devanagari) to learn, and within a day or two someone can easily reproduce in writing what he/she hears and read out loud what he/she reads: so the script's nothing to do with the low literacy rate of the subcontinent.



This is a yes-and-no response and to it my response is - yes and no.
Obviously, a phonetic script is easier to learn and read. Here we have a figure of a day or two to learn Hindi: I agree whole-heartedly. 
Here we are talking about what I asked about: how long it takes to learn a given script. For Hindi we have an answer: 1 or 2 days. 
If we are then to use this fact to increase the literacy rate, then we must ask: why are we not getting the script to the people who need it? What stops a Hindi-speaking child from learning to read Hindi in two days? If it's that easy, we should expect full literacy in Hindi for Hindi speakers by the age of 6, say. And if that is not being achieved, why not?
Perhaps it's time for a new sanskar. Before the investment with the jannoi, a child should spend 2 days with the guru or mentor or whatever title, of whatever caste, in a group of, say, 8 children in all, and learn to read. This would apply to boys and girls. I wonder if the Arya Samaj is already doing anything like this? And of course the Arya Samaj has always opposed the caste system. In South Africa at least, it makes pandits of chamars, and chamars of Brahmins!


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## greatbear

Ironicus said:


> ... we must ask: why are we not getting the script to the people who need it? What stops a Hindi-speaking child from learning to read Hindi in two days? If it's that easy, we should expect full literacy in Hindi for Hindi speakers by the age of 6, say. And if that is not being achieved, why not?
> Perhaps it's time for a new sanskar. Before the investment with the jannoi, a child should spend 2 days with the guru or mentor or whatever title, of whatever caste, in a group of, say, 8 children in all, and learn to read. This would apply to boys and girls. I wonder if the Arya Samaj is already doing anything like this? And of course the Arya Samaj has always opposed the caste system. In South Africa at least, it makes pandits of chamars, and chamars of Brahmins!



Caste isn't anymore that big a factor as financial compulsions are, as far as Hindi is concerned: Brahmins don't have 100 percent literacy, and it is not that people belonging to lower castes are not literate. Rather, in modern India, education has become extremely expensive and public schooling is pathetic: for many, there is no environment of learning at home. Schools serve that need: the schools of today are nothing but another product meant for consumption. That attitude is in fact less in India and more in many Western countries. Which all means that the poor are often not literate.

In addition, many Indian kids are literate in English first and then in Hindi or their local languages. English first became the vehicle to a high-flying lifestyle or to better material prospects in life, to better position and status in society (irrespective of caste, again); now English has become even a natural language of communication for many. I often encounter parents, especially in places like bookshops, malls and upmarket food joints, but also in trains and at airports, talking to their children in English: a deliberate measure which disturbs me deeply. The same thing happens with Hindi in certain south Indian families today: parents speaking Hindi instead of Tamil or Telugu to their kids! Indians are losing fast their heritage, and they are quite happy to do so.


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## Ironicus

I think you've put your finger on the problem, greatbear. When education becomes a product, everyone loses except the peddlers of the product. I posed the question in the first place because there is an organization here in the USA soliciting money to teach literacy in India, but instead of using punchy, effective materials that will turn out literate kids in a day or two, they use stuff that ensures long-term gigs for teachers. I find that if you teach a child to read, write and do arithmetic, that child will educate himself no matter how hard you try to prevent it, provided he can surmount the distractions that come his way. I suspect that teachers know this and do their best to suppress the knowledge, otherwise they'd have to go out and get a job. And teachers vote, so the politicians go along with the charade, otherwise_ they'd_ have to go out and get real jobs too. 
Meanwhile, the kids suffer.
I think that there are still enough Indians who love their vernaculars to ensure their preservation, especially as English loses prestige - as inevitably it will. When it becomes a true _lingua franca_, the language strangers use to communicate, then the more people who learn it, the better: because all those people will retain their own languages too.
But those are philosophical questions. My objective is to design a cheap tool that you can put into the hands of any child; given minimal guidance, that child will learn to read and write in a day.


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## greatbear

Of course, with the end of colonisation, English is no more the language of the powerful: it will now always remain a global language (which I don't resent at all), but speaking it won't be seen as something special. Already, many young Indians do a lot of code-switching, something that would have been seen as a shameful thing in the upwardly mobile of the eighties or even the nineties. However, in countries like India, where English is losing ground, other foreign languages like French, German and Spanish are usurping that ground - of prestige. This is all the more so because (1) not everyone knows French or Italian, so knowing it gives a certain kind of prestige to the speaker; and (2) there are more job opportunities even if one hasn't studied anything else - after all how many people are good at a foreign language?

I don't mind this learning of foreign languages - after all, I myself love learning languages. However, when a language is learnt not for the love of it but only to show off or to get some job, then that's worrying to me: even more so when the person doesn't know much of the beauties of his or her own language. I am fine if that person doesn't really like his or her native tongue, but if he or she doesn't even know it, then that's worrisome.

Talking of philosophical questions, the whole education business is a sham, from cent percent literate countries to low-literacy countries. Education is everywhere either a business or a program - and I don't see education as either of them. For me, the only education is teaching/encouraging/exhorting someone to think: as you say, once a child knows how to read, write and do a bit of arithmetic, he or she can do the rest themselves. Many kids get lost in the distractions offered by a consumerist culture (and a consumerist education system) on the way, however: so the only job to do for a teacher, in my opinion, is to make the students think. Make them curious and let them freely discover their own answers.

What do you mean, by the way, by a "tool"?


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## Ironicus

By a tool, greatbear, I mean - whatever does the job. For example, a smartphone app might  be a very handy tool, but being expensive, would have low penetration, as well as violating what I consider to be a cardinal principle of learning: learning is social, we learn best from other humans.
On the other hand a deck of cards might be a tool too, much more readily accessible to more people. 
But these and any other tools must be demonstrated to each individual, otherwise a good proportion of them will see the tool, use it, and for one reason or another become discouraged too early. The demonstrator is the teacher you are thinking of: the one who makes the student think, and in this case, makes him think the tool will work for him (the student).


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## Ironicus

Alfaaz said:


> ... snip ...
> Edit: Personal Experience: it probably takes about 3-4 days to be able to read and write in Urdu (while fluently speaking the language beforehand), kind of like kids being able to learn from an Arabic qai'dah (even when they don't speak the language)



Thank you Alfaaz, I have only just seen your edited reply, and this is useful information. You estimate that it takes about twice as long for an Urdu speaker to learn to write, about twice as long as it takes a Hindi speaker, and I would have expected this. I also expect that it takes much longer to learn the correct spelling of many words, distinguishing between alif and ayn; tha, sin, saad; za, zoi, daad; and so on. Do you have any feeling for how long that takes?


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## Qureshpor

Ironicus said:


> Hello all, svaagatam, salaam!
> 
> There are two main forms of writing in use in the region. One is derived from Arabic, and is used by Persian, Urdu, Sindhi and others. The other, which I will refer to as Indic, is derived ultimately I think from Brahui. Devanagari is the flagship of this writing.
> 
> The Arabic scripts have no way of representing short vowels, but in other respects are well adapted to the languages they represent. The problems that occur with them arise because of confusion about the phonemes of Arabic and of the other language involved. For example, I always wondered why so many Urdu speakers called their daughters Samina ("Fatty") until I found out they were actually Thamina ("Precious").



wa 3alaikumu_ssalaam Ironicus.

I am sure you already know, as we all do, that Arabic script does have a system of representing short vowels when it feels there is a necessity to do so. By the way, Urdu script is based on Arabic, Persian and Indic sound systems and in this sense it is different from both Arabic and Persian.

I hope that you have also now realised that those Arabic consonants for which Urdu as well as some other languages have the same sound value serve a very useful purpose. They point to the etymology of the words in question.


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## Alfaaz

> Thank you Alfaaz, I have only just seen your edited reply, and this is useful information. You estimate that it takes about twice as long for an Urdu speaker to learn to write, about twice as long as it takes a Hindi speaker, and I would have expected this. I also expect that it takes much longer to learn the correct spelling of many words, distinguishing between alif and ayn; tha, sin, saad; za, zoi, daad; and so on. Do you have any feeling for how long that takes?


You're Welcome, but I'm afraid that you probably didn't read my post completely or carefully. The number I gave was a general estimate. It doesn't apply to everybody. I have taught some English speaking acquaintances/friends (who had absolutely no exposure except seeing calligraphy) the Urdu alphabet in four hours (to the point where they could use it two transliterate English sentences with Urdu letters.....so it would be "secret" like for a diary, etc.). ڈو یو انڈرسٹینڈ وٹ آئی اَیْم سے اِنگ ؟ 

Now that I have said this, would you go back and conclude that the Urdu script is easier? That would be wrong again as it varies from individual to individual. 

greatbear said above that the Hindi script is very simple, but I personally found it harder (and wasn't able to learn it) as it appeared to have too many symbols/letters, the letters didn't have "names" and everything seemed to have a line above it with squiggles underneath, etc. On the other hand, greatbear (or someone else familiar with the Hindi script) might have similar views about the Urdu script (that it has multiple letters with the same sound, has "names" for letters, has too many dots to remember, etc.) 

There are many Hindi and Bengali speakers who have learned both scripts in the same amount of time and ease (one for Hindi/Bengali and the other for reciting the Quraan).

So from such a comparison, it would be difficult to decide which script is easier/faster to learn. As others and I have said, it would depend on environmental factors: 


			
				Alfaaz said:
			
		

> What is the standard of the school and teachers?
> There will be those teachers that make learning a fun process and teach with enthusiasm..........but then there will also be those teachers that make school a horrible and miserable experience............which might make the rebellious/dropout of school and illiterate!



As far as the different letters are concerned, it comes naturally while learning in school, just as in English one would learn and know that cut is written with a "c" and not a "k". foot is with "oo" not a "u", as is the rhyming "put". cerebrum and cerebellum are with a "c" and not with an "s". This comes from practice through reading books and/or memorization. 


> Whatever is "loaded" into the child's brain will probably become "natural" for the person


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## marrish

My experience tells me that learning Nagari script is certainly a matter of more than a couple of days and mastering it requires a longer period. 

The Gurmukhi script can be learnt more easily, and I'm not the only one that shares this impression.

I observed that the process of learning reading can take a couple of years to succeed with some people who can't read. My opinion is that the alleged difficulty of the script has a neglectable impact, if any, on the spread of literacy.


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## greatbear

Alfaaz said:


> greatbear said above that the Hindi script is very simple, but I personally found it harder (and wasn't able to learn it) as it appeared to have too many symbols/letters, the letters didn't have "names" and everything seemed to have a line above it with squiggles underneath, etc. On the other hand, greatbear (or someone else familiar with the Hindi script) might have similar views about the Urdu script (that it has multiple letters with the same sound, has "names" for letters, has too many dots to remember, etc.)



It's laughable to call the Devanagari script difficult because of the line above it! Whether you put that line or not, how does it matter: you can still read that word. That line is just an extra convention, which is, for example, absent from Gujarati script.

Also, my views about the Hindi script have nothing to do with my "familiarity" with the Hindi script: I wasn't familiar with the Hindi script as I grew up in a non-Hindi environment and I had to learn it myself using a book meant for learning English from Hindi (which I used for the opposite purpose). My views were based on my teaching experience of Hindi to French people, who find the Hindi script quite easy and within a day or two can read anything written in Hindi though of course stutteringly.


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## Alfaaz

Alfaaz said:
			
		

> Now that I have said this, would you go back and conclude that the Urdu script is easier? That would be wrong again as it varies from individual to individual.
> 
> greatbear said above that the Hindi script is very simple, but I personally found it harder (and wasn't able to learn it) as it appeared to have too many symbols/letters, the letters didn't have "names" and everything seemed to have a line above it with squiggles underneath, etc. On the other hand, ... someone else ... might have similar views about the Urdu script (that it has multiple letters with the same sound, has "names" for letters, has too many dots to remember, etc.)





			
				greatbear said:
			
		

> It's laughable to call the Devanagari script difficult because of the line above it! Whether you put that line or not, how does it matter: you can still read that word. That line is just an extra convention, which is, for example, absent from Gujarati script.



I'm afraid you might not have understood the purpose and meaning of my post...! In the comment you have quoted and replied to, I gave possible negative points about *both* Urdu *and* Hindi scirpts. (Note: I don't have any personal dushmani against any script!  It was_* just *_for the sake of an example! To show contrasting viewpoints! Didn't mean to suggest that _you specifically_ would have certain views...) Someone from the Urdu side could come in and tell me the same thing as you have done: _" It's laughable to call the Urdu script difficult because of the multiple letters with the same sound, etc. etc. " _Your sudden rebuttal to my post actually highlights the point that I was trying to make: everyone is different, has different opinions and perceptions, so with a survey of two people (greatbear and Alfaaz) for time it takes to learn a script....should not be a basis for deciding which is easier or harder!

Then, I gave another example...in which people found both easy to deal with (opposite to the example I was presenting above): 



			
				Alfaaz said:
			
		

> There are many Hindi and Bengali speakers who have learned both scripts in the same amount of time and ease (one for Hindi/Bengali and the other for reciting the Quraan).
> So from such a comparison, it would be difficult to decide which script is easier/faster to learn. As others and I have said, it would depend on environmental factors:


Again, the main point was to highlight the fact that Ironicus should not take my 4 days estimate and divide that by your 2 days estimate to arrive at the conclusion that one script is easier than the other and can be learned in half the time! As all of us have said above that it has less to do with only script and more to do with education/external factors!


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## greatbear

However, according to me, Urdu script is indeed more difficult to learn than Hindi script: if I were to teach Urdu script and Hindi script to say an Italian person, the latter would be easier to learn IMO. I also haven't any _dushmanii_ to the Urdu script: some scripts are just more difficult to learn, and Urdu is one of them. Nagari itself is a more difficult script to learn than the roman script for English.


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## marrish

greatbear said:


> However, according to me, Urdu script is indeed more difficult to learn than Hindi script: if I were to teach Urdu script and Hindi script to say an Italian person, the latter would be easier to learn IMO. I also haven't any _dushmanii_ to the Urdu script: some scripts are just more difficult to learn, and Urdu is one of them. Nagari itself is a more difficult script to learn than the roman script for English.


Let us acknowledge that difficulty to learn remains subject to personal experience. But if we'd give it a try and name some criteria within these subjective factors, I think the graphical simplicity could be a crucial indicator. Hindi script is graphically the most complicated one, Urdu being the most austere of used shapes (excluding the extensive art of calligraphy). Personally I find Urdu script much easier to learn, but if there are people who have had opposite experiences then be so because we can have diverse opinions. Having said that, I don't think Hindi script is too difficult, but Urdu seems a bit easier and smoothier than Hindi.


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## Ironicus

Marrish, "graphical symplicity" in your phrase, is of course of primary importance.
For example, there are some writing systems I find unwritable because they are internally inconsistent and give the impression of great clumsiness. Among such are the Cherokee syllabary, the Tfinagh alphabet for Berber adopted by a sort of royal commission in Morocco, and the Coptic alphabet. 
Phoenician, Himyaritic, Greek and Roman I find easy. 
Hindi is undoubtedly a little harder than Gujarati because of that line. The sensible bunyas probably dropped it as an unnecessary expense!
I find Arabic easy, but I find others find it harder than, say, Hindi or Gujarati. I find traditional Urdu, with letters joining from the top as well as the right, and with different forms for _he_ as an independent _Harf_ and a sign of aspiration, much easier to read than the rather charmless stuff  a typewriter will churn out.
I think with all these different types of writing there comes an 'aha!' moment, when you learn to distinguish between script and noise. For instance, when you read a hand-written copy of the Quran, there are likely to be plenty of little decorative flourishes: you learn to see these as separate from the script. Then there are symbols like the pauses, and the symbols showing tajwiyd: you learn to ignore these when your object is to comprehend, rather than to recite, the text.
Now, Indic and Arabic scripts alike are free of the curse that oppresses the alphabets of the West, namely the dichotomy between capitals and small letters. This makes it much easier to reach the aha! moment. It's also an excellent reason for not teaching it until the student has learned to read without them.
But having read what other posters have to say, I think I am safe in concluding that factors outside the learners hold learners back. I am pretty sure that, given any random child for 20 minutes a day, one can teach that child to read any script except perhaps Telugu in 5 days. So then we have to look at the things that stop this happening, and for the sake of those children, remove them.


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