letters are scribbles

unless you know how each one sounds

you literally cannot decipher them

Modern isn't standardized either, one spelling : one word is not a good ratio

Association though

and spelling was very unstandardized back then as well

ah, right, i thought you meant THE phonetic alphabet

there is no association

you can see scribbles

Yes there is

1 character = 1 word is efficient in its own right

but until you understand what sound each letters make

These people aren't living in a vacuum

you cant decipher them

Or more so phrase

They'd still be exposed on occasion to merchants, priests, lords, writings

The thing is that you only need a few words to get the gist

It's like background radiation

You pick and patch it up it's how the human brain works

no i mean

i guess you could. LLike its feasable that someone could read but not speak

hearing someone speaking a language

wont teach you to read that language

at all

until you learn how a letter sounds

Language is zipfian so if you learn the most common 1000 words you're literally good with 90% of words by usage

No but seeing a merchant point to something and say

Etc

point to what?

Like signs

You really think signage didn't exist?

how many signs do you think there were back then

Yes the average peasant was illiterate

roman milestones for example

didnt have words on them

they had numerals

But if you wanted very terrible spelling

thats an example of signage

but no words

You could get them to spell something out

I'll go find it you're reminding me of some history thing I watched that made me rethink history