illiterate:
( the opposite word in meaning: ‘literate‘; the letters ‘I’ rhyme with ‘I’ in the word ‘ink’ — for the right pronunciation, please click here)
a community of illiterates
a person who cannot read or write his/her mother tongue/native language;
a person who can read and write but does not know the basics or fundamentals of a technical, scientific or cultural issue, e.g. a graduate of law not knowing the fundamentals of engines and motors; a medical doctor not knowing classical music or dance, etc.;
a rich person who can read and write but does not know how to behave well in a high society, i.e. who does not have culture or sophistication,
a class of adult illiterates
We don’t like to call our landlord an illiterate just because he cannot read or write in his mother tongue; he’s far better than people with high education as he has vast practical knowledge and wisdom, and to top all of it, he’s such a sense of humour that everyone likes him.
Most people believe that an illiterate is an imbecile, a person with mental disability, but actually an illiterate may be ignorant of many things, but not necessarily without wisdom; for example, headmen of rural communities in Asia and Africa are mostly illiterates but they show excellent political and social understanding and head their communities far better than their urban counterparts!
At present there are about 800 million adult illiterates in the world, out of which 64% are women.
There are different kinds of illiterates. There are functional illiterates who have some education but fall below the required standards in doing literary tasks; computer illiterates who can read and write but cannot operate a computer; economic illiterates who use money but do not know anything about the science of economics; science illiterates who can read and write very well but cannot understand what science is, and so on!
