[trenchpilgrim]

I don't remember that line in Anathem. It seemd pretty clear that the Saecular society at the time of the novel was a literate, 21st century tech level. e.g. there were characters like Samman who was basically a sysadmin.

[WolfeReader]

It's in the first chapter. The quote you were replying to was in the book, verbatim.

[Nasrudith]

Weren't the ita basically 'half-concents' essentially? Where the caste, despite being allowed more of the trappings and technological luxuries of the Saecular society, specifically were kept away from the other sciences to handicap them because they couldn't enforce the same asceticism on one whose job it is to maintain the technology.

[ashton314]

They all use Kinagrams—a moving picture script. Very few are literate. Well-off burgers typically can read and write, but lots of the workers and virtually all the slines can't read.

[trenchpilgrim]

Aren't Kinagrams and Logotype Arban forms of logograms, like Chinese characters or Kanji? I interpreted that as "most extramuros can read and type their daily language, but not the alphabet used for technical writing"

[ashton314]

The extramuros language is “Fluccish” and it’s stated that it uses the same alphabet as Orth. I think it’s a little more pictorial (esp. Kinagrams with animation) than Chinese