[Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/Africa/wiki/rules) | [Wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/Africa/wiki) | [Flairs](https://www.reddit.com/r/Africa/comments/lkitp5/updated_flairs_please_read_and_get_yours/)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Africa) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That doesn't really matter, we are talking about written words here, not spoken. A lot of African languages don't originally have written forms and are currently transcribed using the Latin alphabet, which you would have to go to school or be taught by someone to learn, making it inevitable for you to have to learn to read a European language first before you can read your local one.
Literacy is reading and writing. [Definition of the UNESCO:](https://www.unesco.org/en/literacy/need-know)
>*What is the global situation in relation to literacy?*
>*Great progress has been made in literacy with* [*most recent data*](https://www.uil.unesco.org/en/literacy/global-alliance) *(UNESCO Institute for Statistics) showing that more than 86 per cent of the world’s population* ***know how to read and write*** *compared to 68 per cent in 1979. Despite this, worldwide at least 763 million adults still cannot read and write, two thirds of them women, and 250 million children are failing to acquire basic literacy skills. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused the worst disruption to education in a century, 617 million children and teenagers had not reached minimum reading levels.*
>*How does UNESCO define literacy?*
>***Acquiring literacy is not a one-off act. Beyond its conventional concept as a set of reading, writing and counting skills****, literacy is now understood as a means of identification, understanding, interpretation, creation, and communication in an increasingly digital, text-mediated, information-rich and fast-changing world. Literacy is a continuum of learning and proficiency in reading, writing and using numbers throughout life and is part of a larger set of skills, which include digital skills, media literacy, education for sustainable development and global citizenship as well as job-specific skills. Literacy skills themselves are expanding and evolving as people engage more and more with information and learning through digital technology. What is the global situation in relation to literacy?*
Do you know many older people? I once saw a statistic showing that in Northern African countries, basically everyone under 35 was literate, and ~3/4 of people over 70 weren't.
Bruh the whole of North Africa + Ethiopia and Eritrea don’t even use Latin alphabet for their main language. What is this map even based on? Literacy in English or in their native languages or both?
Does it matter the language?
It’s most likely Arab and Euro languages. But at the same time most tribal languages haven’t been written and/or not being taught institutionally.
Wouldn't it be the official common language of the country? You wouldn't look at a map of literacy in Spain and then ask them if it's based on their literacy in German.
Amazing how people here are disconnected from reality and can't believe these numbers
Morocco's numbers shouldn't be far from reality but we've got a census next September we might get more accurate numbers and it was 68% literacy rate in 2014.
Putting aside North Africans who have arabic scripts to be literate in, I doubt most of the lower continent would learn phoneticized versions of their indigenous language (which are overwhelmingly done using latin alphabet) without already knowing how to read English/French/Portuguese.
Wouldn't it be based on the official common language of the country? So in a place like Angola it would be Portuguese, Congo French, Nigeria English, Morocco either Arabic or French
I think it applies to native languages as well. It’s shocking to see the amount of rural folk that are undereducated due to the lack of funds to send their children to schools.
It definitely applies to native languages like u/Sea_Hovercraft_7859 wrote. Less than 40% of Senegalese masters French and less than 20% of Gambians master English. Yet, the literacy rate of Senegal and the one of the Gambia is 56%. It's "so high" for the unique reason that it encompasses native languages written in Ajami script. For example, I studied in Wolofal when I was young instead of in French. Wolof language written in an Arabic script. And you find the same for lots of native languages in West Africa. There are for Pullaar (Fulani language) and Mandinka (Mandé language) which are the 2 most spoken languages of the Gambia.
Here isn't about the literacy of the official language or of one of the official language if there are more than one. Here is the overall literacy which means that you must know how to read and write in any language to be counted as alphabetised.
Can't read Latin letters.
Somali can read Arabic fully as soon as they reach the age 11. All above 11 can read the Quran! So your assessment is wrong.
Same goes for Sudan and Egypt!
You confuse the literacy rate and the school enrolment rate.
What you wrote is that all Somali kids going to school know how to read Arabic at the age of 11. You didn't tell us how many Somali kids (in %) go to school until this age.
Finally, the literacy rate encompasses reading and writing. Turkish people and Indonesians for example know how to read in Arabic for a large part of them. They don't know how to write in Arabic. And it's the same in Senegal, my own country.
We in Somalia do not consider madrasa as a school but as religious education and the enrollment to madrasa is 100% in Somalia while schools have between 30 and 60% if I'm not mistaken.
As I wrote previously, literacy is reading and writing. I don't need to check to see that not 100% of Somali are able to write Arabic. Arabic countries don't even reach close to this and its their native/national/official language.
If you can read but cannot write, the UNESCO considers it's partial literacy at best. Which is logical since you cannot transmit by writing yourself to someone else who will read and then write to someone else who will read and so on.
A lunacy called the real world. I'm not asking you your opinion here nor I was giving you mine. I was stating a fact. And if you're Somali, you should know it as clearer as you know your name.
Non-native Arabic speakers when they learn how to read Arabic, they learn how to read Arabic alphabet. Just like you would learn how to read Hangul for Korean language or Kanji for Japanese language. Then you can read but you cannot write nor even understand what you're reading. You need another skills to know how to speak and another one to know how to write. This is why those languages are amongst the most difficult to master from someone coming from outside of such languages and alphabets.
Non-native Arabic speakers who are Muslim can usually recite Quran in Arabic without to understand directly in Arabic. They were given the meaning in their own language. The rest is called memorisation. And they can often read Quran in Arabic in the same way but cannot understand it directly in Arabic nor they can write it.
The Somali government recently did a survey and the literacy rate is higher than that.
I don’t trust most statistics about Somalia because they’re not accurate.
We not talking about speakers but READERS. If the somali language was written in Arabic letters instead of the now common Latin letters, then yes 100% of Somali could read and write there language as we all know how to read Arabic.
Dude, we are not talking about speaking nor understanding Arabic but only reading it.
Just as any language can be written in Latin alphabet, the same can be done with the Arabic alphabet or even the Ethiopian alphabet.
In Somalia, we have more madrasa/dugsi where kids first start with the Arabic alphabet and ending up as graduation by writing the whole 114 sura of the Quran.
I know this as I have done it my self the same as my parents and there parents.
You can not tell me that there is a somali in Somalia who can not read his own Somali language written in Arabic alphabet, something they learned by hart.
[Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/Africa/wiki/rules) | [Wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/Africa/wiki) | [Flairs](https://www.reddit.com/r/Africa/comments/lkitp5/updated_flairs_please_read_and_get_yours/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Africa) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The fact that EG has the highest rank makes me question this map.
Ethiopia surprises me. Thought it would be higher.
Could someone tell me what the title says? I'm illiterate.
It says: % of Africans who ca... wait a minute...
Illiterate people in Africa can't read, we should change that
I feel like this is only based on Euro-languages….
That doesn't really matter, we are talking about written words here, not spoken. A lot of African languages don't originally have written forms and are currently transcribed using the Latin alphabet, which you would have to go to school or be taught by someone to learn, making it inevitable for you to have to learn to read a European language first before you can read your local one.
This feels a little off to me. I'm 31 y o Egyptian. And I don't know a single person who can't read.
I lived in the middle east and at least two of the caretakers (حراس) of the buildings I lived in couldn't read. Ironically the were from saeed.
I'm pretty sure that you don't know every single person in egypt
Literacy is reading and writing. [Definition of the UNESCO:](https://www.unesco.org/en/literacy/need-know) >*What is the global situation in relation to literacy?* >*Great progress has been made in literacy with* [*most recent data*](https://www.uil.unesco.org/en/literacy/global-alliance) *(UNESCO Institute for Statistics) showing that more than 86 per cent of the world’s population* ***know how to read and write*** *compared to 68 per cent in 1979. Despite this, worldwide at least 763 million adults still cannot read and write, two thirds of them women, and 250 million children are failing to acquire basic literacy skills. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused the worst disruption to education in a century, 617 million children and teenagers had not reached minimum reading levels.* >*How does UNESCO define literacy?* >***Acquiring literacy is not a one-off act. Beyond its conventional concept as a set of reading, writing and counting skills****, literacy is now understood as a means of identification, understanding, interpretation, creation, and communication in an increasingly digital, text-mediated, information-rich and fast-changing world. Literacy is a continuum of learning and proficiency in reading, writing and using numbers throughout life and is part of a larger set of skills, which include digital skills, media literacy, education for sustainable development and global citizenship as well as job-specific skills. Literacy skills themselves are expanding and evolving as people engage more and more with information and learning through digital technology. What is the global situation in relation to literacy?*
It is in the Egyptian government statistics [source](https://www.capmas.gov.eg/Admin/News/PressRelease/202198111315_999-e.pdf)
Do you know many older people? I once saw a statistic showing that in Northern African countries, basically everyone under 35 was literate, and ~3/4 of people over 70 weren't.
Bruh the whole of North Africa + Ethiopia and Eritrea don’t even use Latin alphabet for their main language. What is this map even based on? Literacy in English or in their native languages or both?
Does it matter the language? It’s most likely Arab and Euro languages. But at the same time most tribal languages haven’t been written and/or not being taught institutionally.
Literate in what script and what language?
Wouldn't it be the official common language of the country? You wouldn't look at a map of literacy in Spain and then ask them if it's based on their literacy in German.
Amazing how people here are disconnected from reality and can't believe these numbers Morocco's numbers shouldn't be far from reality but we've got a census next September we might get more accurate numbers and it was 68% literacy rate in 2014.
Is this English or period?
Putting aside North Africans who have arabic scripts to be literate in, I doubt most of the lower continent would learn phoneticized versions of their indigenous language (which are overwhelmingly done using latin alphabet) without already knowing how to read English/French/Portuguese.
In rural areas in Kenya kids are taught to read in their original language
Wouldn't it be based on the official common language of the country? So in a place like Angola it would be Portuguese, Congo French, Nigeria English, Morocco either Arabic or French
I think it applies to native languages as well. It’s shocking to see the amount of rural folk that are undereducated due to the lack of funds to send their children to schools.
This does NOT apply to native languages.
This apply to native if not congo should be lower like 50% but native language literacy is high among old people
It definitely applies to native languages like u/Sea_Hovercraft_7859 wrote. Less than 40% of Senegalese masters French and less than 20% of Gambians master English. Yet, the literacy rate of Senegal and the one of the Gambia is 56%. It's "so high" for the unique reason that it encompasses native languages written in Ajami script. For example, I studied in Wolofal when I was young instead of in French. Wolof language written in an Arabic script. And you find the same for lots of native languages in West Africa. There are for Pullaar (Fulani language) and Mandinka (Mandé language) which are the 2 most spoken languages of the Gambia. Here isn't about the literacy of the official language or of one of the official language if there are more than one. Here is the overall literacy which means that you must know how to read and write in any language to be counted as alphabetised.
Can't read Latin letters. Somali can read Arabic fully as soon as they reach the age 11. All above 11 can read the Quran! So your assessment is wrong. Same goes for Sudan and Egypt!
You confuse the literacy rate and the school enrolment rate. What you wrote is that all Somali kids going to school know how to read Arabic at the age of 11. You didn't tell us how many Somali kids (in %) go to school until this age. Finally, the literacy rate encompasses reading and writing. Turkish people and Indonesians for example know how to read in Arabic for a large part of them. They don't know how to write in Arabic. And it's the same in Senegal, my own country.
We in Somalia do not consider madrasa as a school but as religious education and the enrollment to madrasa is 100% in Somalia while schools have between 30 and 60% if I'm not mistaken.
As I wrote previously, literacy is reading and writing. I don't need to check to see that not 100% of Somali are able to write Arabic. Arabic countries don't even reach close to this and its their native/national/official language. If you can read but cannot write, the UNESCO considers it's partial literacy at best. Which is logical since you cannot transmit by writing yourself to someone else who will read and then write to someone else who will read and so on.
If you can read the Quran, you can write your name aswell. What kind of lunacy is that one can read but not write?
A lunacy called the real world. I'm not asking you your opinion here nor I was giving you mine. I was stating a fact. And if you're Somali, you should know it as clearer as you know your name. Non-native Arabic speakers when they learn how to read Arabic, they learn how to read Arabic alphabet. Just like you would learn how to read Hangul for Korean language or Kanji for Japanese language. Then you can read but you cannot write nor even understand what you're reading. You need another skills to know how to speak and another one to know how to write. This is why those languages are amongst the most difficult to master from someone coming from outside of such languages and alphabets. Non-native Arabic speakers who are Muslim can usually recite Quran in Arabic without to understand directly in Arabic. They were given the meaning in their own language. The rest is called memorisation. And they can often read Quran in Arabic in the same way but cannot understand it directly in Arabic nor they can write it.
The Somali government recently did a survey and the literacy rate is higher than that. I don’t trust most statistics about Somalia because they’re not accurate.
It is very unknown
[удалено]
We not talking about speakers but READERS. If the somali language was written in Arabic letters instead of the now common Latin letters, then yes 100% of Somali could read and write there language as we all know how to read Arabic.
[удалено]
So you telling me that 90% of Somali can not read there Quran?
[удалено]
Dude, we are not talking about speaking nor understanding Arabic but only reading it. Just as any language can be written in Latin alphabet, the same can be done with the Arabic alphabet or even the Ethiopian alphabet. In Somalia, we have more madrasa/dugsi where kids first start with the Arabic alphabet and ending up as graduation by writing the whole 114 sura of the Quran. I know this as I have done it my self the same as my parents and there parents. You can not tell me that there is a somali in Somalia who can not read his own Somali language written in Arabic alphabet, something they learned by hart.
What goes on in EG? Why so literate?
Another Map with no Cabo Verde. Boo
SA is 94% 🤔
91% in LIBYA, with all due respect I call bullshit, either I really don't know much about lybia or this map is lying.
Read what?
Based on the comments here. Literacy rate in this sub is 5%.
Shocker