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[SixOfSpades]

Nobles might not necessarily need to be able to read, but books are essentially artifacts and people should be seeking them out for the status, or possibly magic they involve.

This got me thinking. I've always considered dwarves to have a nearly 100% literacy rate (at least, once you disregard the obvious exceptions, like the blind). Tolkien's dwarves certainly treasure books, maps, & genealogy, and they just LOVE carving runes on things: "The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Hollin drew these signs." But then again . . . those words could easily have been written by Celebrimbor, and Narvi simply etched the stone where the elf had painted, & then filled the engraving back in with ithil-sheen. You don't need to be able to read to do that.

There are a few DF professions that strongly suggest an aptitude for reading, like Engraver, Mechanic, Building Designer, and Diagnostician, but the only position that actually requires it is Bookkeeper. And widespread illiteracy would go a long way toward explaining the more egregious faults of the Random Name Generator: A Mason creates an artifact cabinet depicting a midnight monster devouring a human. The artist "signs" her work with a few random runes that she thinks might be her name, but unfortunately they turn out to mean "Oilypaddles the Bodice of Lobsters."

Thoughts?

[Slogo]

Only dwarven adventurers can read. Everyone else has no skill in Reading. I'm guessing bookkeeping and trade negotiations are done in pictograms.

Somehow dwarves have the innate ability to write though since they have no problem engraving memorials to their fallen comrades. Presumably they can write them, but then not read it.

[FallenAngel]

It could also be that Reading lets the person read things their fort/land didn't write.
Why adventurers can't read things in their starting area without reading can be explained. You're being plopped into the world by a deity.

[Larix]

Nobles might not necessarily need to be able to read, but books are essentially artifacts and people should be seeking them out for the status, or possibly magic they involve.

There are a few DF professions that strongly suggest an aptitude for reading, like Engraver, Mechanic, Building Designer, and Diagnostician, but the only position that actually requires it is Bookkeeper.

You don't need to know a writing system to draw rough pictures of a variety of items and make a bunch of tally marks. No profession _requires_ reading, which is for the best, since afaik fortress-mode citizens never have that skill and no fort-made items are unequivocally shown to bear writing (i don't think that they ever even _suggest_ it, but that's a matter of opinion).

PS: Oh right, memorials. Yeah, those are quite explicit. Unfortunately, this only muddies the waters, since to me, the absence of writing on most other items is quite conspicuous. Perhaps someone ought to make a suggestion for a fleshed-out concept of writing/literacy/non-written messages.

[BlackFlyme]

Memorials bear writing. As evidenced by the fact that trying to examine one as an illiterate adventurer will have the game inform you that you cannot read what is on the memorial.

Yes, this means that engravers don't understand what they wrote on memorials.

[utunnels]

Dorfs use ascii characters. That is why only the overseer can understand.

Code: [Select]

.....E....
...☺☼╤☼...Urist MsManson is eating an elephant. The elephant is placed on a masterwork silver table.

[FallenAngel]

Dorfs use ascii characters. That is why only the overseer can understand.

Code: [Select]

.....E....
...☺☼╤☼...Urist MsManson is eating an elephant. The elephant is placed on a masterwork silver table.

Looks more like a dwarf standing near two uncut gems and a table while an elephant is approaching, but I see your point.

[smjjames]

Only dwarven adventurers can read. Everyone else has no skill in Reading. I'm guessing bookkeeping and trade negotiations are done in pictograms.

Somehow dwarves have the innate ability to write though since they have no problem engraving memorials to their fallen comrades. Presumably they can write them, but then not read it.

Actually, ANY adventurer can read if you put the points into it.

There is currently no way to raise the reading skill.

Also, apparently demons and necromancers can write without actually being able to read either since they write books.

[utunnels]

Also, apparently demons and necromancers can write without actually being able to read either since they write books.

Maybe they write magic tome. That is the tomes let the reader see what they want them to see.

[smjjames]

Also, apparently demons and necromancers can write without actually being able to read either since they write books.

Maybe they write magic tome. That is the tomes let the reader see what they want them to see.

Possibly, and the demons would have their own infernal script anyway.

[Jervill]

Perhaps the dwarves only write by engraving symbols, which is why novice engravers get little more than "this is a dwarf" as descriptions, but more skilled engravers can properly convey meaning such as "Fortress was founded in 251 by these people" to readers who are unfamiliar with reading.

Sort of like a very rudimentary cuneiform or what earliest human writing was like.

[SixOfSpades]

But then there's the issue of engraving images of specific dwarves. Sure, if your fort has only 50 dwarves, you could easily use the process of elimination to deduce that the only person who has a mustache in double braids, massive slabs of fat, and a reason to be raising a masterwork bone bolt, must be Vabok Dustfurnace. Except that not only do most forts have at least 3 times that population, but they also frequently have images of rulers long dead, and other historical figures that aren't even dwarves. Can you really imagine an engraver etching a scene of a human striking down a goblin, neither of whom would be recognized by a single citizen of the fort, because that battle took place over 200 years ago, if the combatant's names were not featured at the bottom of the carving? And while a floor-to-ceiling bas-relief would probably provide ample space to show a dwarf's exact likeness, right down to the curvature of the bridge of their nose, but you can't say the same thing about a figurine. Or the decorative images added to the figurine. So there's an argument for literacy.

[Broseph Stalin]

Not necessarily. Some cultures used things like quipu for bookkeeping. With a familiar cultural event you can communicate a lot of information with just an image. You may be able to look at this and know instantly what's going on. When you have a culture that values history as much as dwarves with a rich oral tradition you can go a lot deeper. You also can't assume the dwarves know what the images are of, at least not all of them.  This
is a picture of the surrender of English general Burgoyne to the continental army. The only person who needs to know this is the artist, if you've never heard of Burgoyne or even the revolutionary war and you can't make heads or tails of it that doesn't change what it is.

[evictedSaint]

You can modify dwarves so that they have an innate ability to read, if it bothers you.  It's a fairly simple addition.

[SixOfSpades]

Oh, it doesn't bother me either way, and I'm not trying to favor one side over the other, it's just an interesting question that I'd like to explore, especially as the issue doesn't seem to have come up before. So I'm simply fishing for opinions.

When you have a culture that values history as much as dwarves with a rich oral tradition you can go a lot deeper.

Do we know that their rich traditions were oral? Maybe they are, but we can't assume so.

I'm not entirely sure we can rule out things like quipu, or hollow clay balls filled with tokens, from technically being "writing". Going by the most basic urRu definition, "words that stay", they seem to qualify.

This is a picture of the surrender of English general Burgoyne to the continental army. The only person who needs to know this is the artist, if you've never heard of Burgoyne or even the revolutionary war and you can't make heads or tails of it that doesn't change what it is.

That's a good point. Although, to fit the timeframe of most DF engravings, a more apt analogy would be of an artist today, making an artwork of something that happened long before he was born. Such an artist, literate or not, would have to base his renderings on other likenesses drawn (ideally) from life--whether these renderings were handed down to the artist with oral cues ("This is General Burgoyne/Washington/Lafeyette"), or merely with their names written beside them, is still up in the air for dwarves.

Let's consider a similar engraving in your fort's main dining hall.
A) The majority of dwarves can read. The generals and other major figures have their names carved below them, so that everyone can see that it is Washington striking a triumphant pose, and Burgoyne making a plaintive gesture. Such an artwork would most likely continue on long after the death of the artist, and I think we're all agreed on how much dwarves love THAT.
B) The majority of dwarves cannot read. The artist would have to personally explain his creation, pointing out the key players, the symbolism of their placement within the scene, and illustrating how this went on to affect the history of the Unity of States. He would probably do this several times over the course of years, handing down knowledge of the event not just to those who would eventually follow in his footsteps, but to all dwarves in general. And THAT sounds really dwarfy, too.