Dictionary

protoliterate en · ADJ

Etymology

From proto- + literate.

Meanings

1. (not-comparable, of a culture) With written language that is in its early stages.
   • Knowledge of a "fact" and its institutionalization in a society are quite distinct: murder, for example, was probably "discovered" in the Pliocene, but the institutionalization of murder in warfare does not seem to have occurred until the late Neolithic or the protoliterate period. 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 131:
2. (not-comparable, of a person) In the early stages of learning to read and write.

Forms

Deriveds

Protoliterate period · Protoliterate

Relateds

preliterate · protoliteracy