ABSTRACT
Though adored as the greatest achievement of human beings, literacy-the ability to communicate in writing-has been subject to strict monopolistic control throughout its 6, 000-year history. Access to literacy has been denied to individuals, groups, social classes, women, tribes, territories and languages. Today, the great majority of the world’s several thousand languages remain unwritten while the scope of writing is extremely limited in most written languages. In fact, only a few languages equal English in degree and variety of literate communication.
