Do you remember when you learned to read and write? Probably not, but if you have tried to teach someone to read or write for the first time, you may know how difficult it can be. The activities of reading or writing are not simply intuitive or automatic.
Joice mostly, but me a little, taught people to write who had never been able to read or write in any language. People who have never had books and didn’t know the top from the bottom or the beginning from the end. It was all new, and it can be very daunting. It requires patience and some ingenuity to teach them and for them to learn.
We take books, pencils, chalk, blackboards, and now computers, iPads and mobile phones for granted. We have trained teachers to help us and all kinds of books and devices to encourage us. And yet, our society has poor readers and worse writers. Spelling on computers and mobile phones is haphazard and abbreviated. We are lazy about reading and writing, resorting to icons and smiley faces.
Many traffic signs need to be designed for the illiterate, and we look to memes for information. Education is mandatory, but learning is not. You can hold a book in your hand all day and not know how to read it.
Joice and I worked in a then-unknown language in a remote area in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea for many years. Part of our work was to teach the people how to read and write, not simply to read the Bible, but to read anything.
The people were keen to learn to read and write, even some of the older ones, although it was difficult for them. Learning to read and write when you are 40 or older is possible with persistence and help, but it is tough, tedious, and tiring. It is easy to give up.
Paisalo was a Kewa man, about 40, married with children, and he wanted to learn to read. He persevered, and after the New Testament was published in his language, he reportedly spent hours reading it. Ropaasi, his clan brother and about the same age, also learned to read, but it was more difficult for him. However, he loved hearing the New Testament read in his language, and he wanted others to read it.
When the second edition of the New Testament was published and then dedicated in 2004, hundreds of Kewa people bought a copy. I was puzzled why some older women bought the NT, knowing that they could not read. When I asked one woman, she replied, “Oh, my son will read it to me.”
Children learn to read faster than adults, and we hoped they would not act arrogant about it. The children were in school and learned to read English, so transferring to Kewa was not difficult. The orthography we used followed, as much as possible, English symbols, although the actual sounds were different between the two languages. For example, the /t/ in English is made by the tip of the tongue striking against the ridge above the upper teeth. In Kewa when /t/ is sounded, the tongue goes between the teeth and is similar to /th/ in English, but without the /h/ quality. The Kewa alphabet had sounds with variations that made them different than their English counterpart symbols.
Joice compiled sets of primers (readers) to teach reading, and she constructed other books to teach writing. It was hard work, and we were disappointed to sometimes see how carelessly the books were treated. Nevertheless, Joice persevered, and many Kewa boys and girls learned to read and write. We have had letters from some, written in Kewa. She also taught our two children to read and write.
One young man named Kira was especially bright, and Joice taught him to write cursively, print, and use the typewriter. He wrote his autobiography and was instrumental in the publication of the first edition of the New Testament.
Writing is very old, and “Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs are generally considered to be the earliest examples of true writing systems. Both gradually evolved from proto-writing between 3400 and 3100 BCE.” There are many writing systems (orthographies with various kinds of scripts) that have been invented and used over the centuries.
Moses is recorded as writing in Exodus 17.14 when the Lord told him, “Write this down on a scroll as a permanent reminder and read it aloud to Joshua: I will erase the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” And of course, the 10 commandments were written (carved) on stone tablets, and in Revelation, John was told to write to the churches. Without writing, the history of the church would be lost.
When there is no writing in a culture, people rely on bards to remember events and names. I have heard young Kewa boys recite the names of their ancestors back seven generations and give additional lateral names as well. I can go back three on my father’s side, and that is about all and certainly not laterally.
I am so thankful that I learned to read and write at an early age and that I could transfer that skill to other languages.
Think what it would be like if you were illiterate. However, because you can read and write, thank God and encourage others to read books and even emails and messages (hopefully, with a sparsity of icons).
Karl Franklin
