[breezybottom]

Literacy doesn't mean your ability to speak, it means your ability to read/write. Formal schooling for the masses is a very recent invention.

[bluGill]

It isn't hard to learn how to read at a basic level.

[breezybottom]

Sure, if you have books in your house and parents who are also literate and encouraging of it.

[bluGill]

Books are needed to be good, but just writing a simple letter once in a while when you have time is useful and not that hard.