| 释义 |
preˈliterate, a.
[pre- B. 1.]
Applied to social groups or cultures which have not acquired a form of writing. Also as n., a person belonging to such a group or culture. Cf. non-literate a.
1925E. Faris in Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. XXX. 710 For some time the writer has been using..the term ‘pre⁓literate’ to designate the peoples of the sociétiés inferieures, as Lévy-Bruhl calls them. Ibid. 712 Pre-literate man is{ddd}one in whose culture there is no written literature. Ibid., Pre-literates do not have cities. 1933A. R. Radcliffe-Brown in Encycl. Social Sci. IX. 202/1 The confusion which has resulted in the attempt to apply to preliterate societies the modern distinction between criminal law and civil law can be avoided. 1957Antiquity XXXI. 211 Rubbish deposited in superimposed layers by preliterate men. 1962E. R. Service Primitive Social Organization i. 8 Where an Arunta-like way of life is not yet significantly altered by modern influences it is a culture that is primitive, ancient, and preliterate. 1966E. G. Stanley Continuations & Beginnings 127 To understand the use of tags and set phrases, whole half-lines of verse used repeatedly, it is useful to know about some kinds of preliterate composition. 1967N.Y. Rev. Bks. 23 Feb. 33/3 He writes about the last 8000 years of pre⁓literate Europe, which means that he excludes Greeks and Romans. 1970[see non-literate a.].
Hence preˈliteracy, the quality or state of being preliterate.
1957G. Clark Archaeol. & Society (ed. 3) i. 22 Clearly..some difference of opinion is likely to exist as to precisely at what stage preliteracy gives way to literacy. 1967N.Y. Rev. Bks. 23 Feb. 33/1, I wish I knew who invented the word ‘preliteracy’ to indicate the illiteracy of certain extinct or living cultures... Preliteracy points to literacy as the next step in human evolution... In the latter part of the nineteenth century illiteracy was still illiteracy—not preliteracy. |