If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve never known what it’s like to be illiterate. At some hazy point in your childhood, you were unable to read, but you did not need to interact with the written world back then. Until recently, I also didn’t have any but the most general of ideas what illiteracy was like. Moving to a country where not only do the people speak a language that I’m not familiar with but also write in a script that is completely foreign to me gave me a taste of what illiteracy is like. During the most recent work I did on one of my projects, I faced the rounded script of Gurmukhi directly.
A fellow intern and myself are standing in front of a sign for the Forestry Department that on one side is entirely in Punjabi, and on the other, English. It’s the last sign w e’ll see with any English, and we are without our typical (amazing) translator. We have to navigate the maze of the area on our own. We quickly gravitate to anything with a sign – the larger the sign and the bigger the letters, the more likely we figure it to be important. We pass a sign that even has a special welcoming shape, and assume we are likely headed in the right direction. When you can’t read, you quickly learn other rules for getting around. Something with a sign is more likely to be important or something you can enter, as someone put it there to tell you something; the bigger the lettering or a sign is, the more likely it is to be important; and shapes both on and of signs can give you basic information about a place. However, when you can’t read and you’re not trying to find your way somewhere, you pay hardly any attention to what’s written around you. For my first two months here, I assumed most things were written in both Devanagari and Gurmukhi (the alphabets that Hindi and Punjabi are written in, respectively), because I never paid signs enough attention to notice otherwise. It was only when I started learning Devanagari that I realized nothing around here was written in Hindi. Being able to read also gives people a type of mysterious knowledge. Everyone always seems to have secret information that comes to them as if from thin air, in what appears to be some form of Indian telepathy – until you realize that they can read many of the signs around you, and that’s why they know what bus to take or when all the stores will be closed. It is information transported silently from one mind to another, but it’s via paper rather than telekinetic waves.
Having the ability to read expands a person’s world dramatically. In trying to teach an alphabet to the individuals in the camps we work with, we are attempting to provide them with the ability to interact with the world around them on a different level. To have access to the same information that others in the society around them take for granted. Exclusion from the community they live near is a major issue for the migrants we work with, and in a small way, being able to read will allow them to become more a part of that community than they are now. And of course, being able to read will also make books accessible to them – one of the most powerful educating tools. Literacy will give the communities we work with the opportunity to better not only their own place in life, but hopefully that of their family as well.
I always thought of being able to read as something that was simply enjoyable; having now experienced illiteracy, I realize how important it is. How being able to read can expand someone’s world.
A fellow intern and myself are standing in front of a sign for the Forestry Department that on one side is entirely in Punjabi, and on the other, English. It’s the last sign w e’ll see with any English, and we are without our typical (amazing) translator. We have to navigate the maze of the area on our own. We quickly gravitate to anything with a sign – the larger the sign and the bigger the letters, the more likely we figure it to be important. We pass a sign that even has a special welcoming shape, and assume we are likely headed in the right direction. When you can’t read, you quickly learn other rules for getting around. Something with a sign is more likely to be important or something you can enter, as someone put it there to tell you something; the bigger the lettering or a sign is, the more likely it is to be important; and shapes both on and of signs can give you basic information about a place. However, when you can’t read and you’re not trying to find your way somewhere, you pay hardly any attention to what’s written around you. For my first two months here, I assumed most things were written in both Devanagari and Gurmukhi (the alphabets that Hindi and Punjabi are written in, respectively), because I never paid signs enough attention to notice otherwise. It was only when I started learning Devanagari that I realized nothing around here was written in Hindi. Being able to read also gives people a type of mysterious knowledge. Everyone always seems to have secret information that comes to them as if from thin air, in what appears to be some form of Indian telepathy – until you realize that they can read many of the signs around you, and that’s why they know what bus to take or when all the stores will be closed. It is information transported silently from one mind to another, but it’s via paper rather than telekinetic waves.
Having the ability to read expands a person’s world dramatically. In trying to teach an alphabet to the individuals in the camps we work with, we are attempting to provide them with the ability to interact with the world around them on a different level. To have access to the same information that others in the society around them take for granted. Exclusion from the community they live near is a major issue for the migrants we work with, and in a small way, being able to read will allow them to become more a part of that community than they are now. And of course, being able to read will also make books accessible to them – one of the most powerful educating tools. Literacy will give the communities we work with the opportunity to better not only their own place in life, but hopefully that of their family as well.
I always thought of being able to read as something that was simply enjoyable; having now experienced illiteracy, I realize how important it is. How being able to read can expand someone’s world.
- Kayleigh Walters, USA
- Organic farming and SWASH project manager, Punjab
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