On 12 December 2012 21:31, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/506466/given-tablets-but-no-teachers-et...

A village of illiterate Ethiopian children given OLPC tablets with software on taught themselves to read from the gadgets, so Nicholas Negroponte claims.

Well the claims can safely be assumed to be false. Even as far back as colonial times Huntley & Palmers packaging ended up everywhere. Europeans had this weird habit of printing stuff on useful materials like iron and steel so it tended to move around.

Depending on how you view the Rongorongo situation its possible that people can derive writing from very limited contact and the Cherokee syllabary can be considered further evidence but I doubt that is what is going on in this case.