> While I agree with you about plasticity there's a pretty good counterexample to your claim about literacy: in 1929 Turkey switched from the Arabic alphabet, which never quite fit the Turkish language phonetically, to a Roman script variant that they still use today. This was largely credited to the massive increase in literacy over the next decade (random searches suggest it went from 5-10% to 80%).
Claims about the success of the Ataturk's reforms are probably about as credible as Soviet claims about worker productivity.
Other sources claim a literacy rate of 68% in 1975:
Of course it can't be denied that school reforms had a massive impact on literacy, but it's not so clear how previously illiterate adults fared when learning to read and write for the first time.
Claims about the success of the Ataturk's reforms are probably about as credible as Soviet claims about worker productivity.
Other sources claim a literacy rate of 68% in 1975:
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ADT.LITR.ZS?end=2016...
Of course it can't be denied that school reforms had a massive impact on literacy, but it's not so clear how previously illiterate adults fared when learning to read and write for the first time.