Was silent reading unusual during Augustine's time?

rryanscio about 6 hours ago 18 commentsRead Article on historyofinformation.com

ZH version is available. Content is displayed in original English for accuracy.

⚡ Community Insights

Discussion Sentiment

83% Positive

Analyzed from 672 words in the discussion.

Discussion (18 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

itchingsphynx•about 2 hours ago

It’s worth recalling that mass literacy is only about 300 years old, so the modern culture of private reading is only slightly older than the United States, which is probably itself a consequence of mass literacy - sparked by Luther, Gutenberg, etc. Ironically, today the USA is also probably leading the decline in mass literacy woth a “post-literate president.” Maybe book-reading will eventually become an anachronistic hobby, although even Thomas Jefferson made this dire prophecy too about fiction [1].

“Acoustic representations activated in silent reading are best characterized as inner speech rather than as abstract phonological codes.” [2]

1. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/08/reading-crisis-...

2. https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03205520

RealityVoid•about 1 hour ago

Not sure. Since LLM's have their spot, I, personally, have been reading much more. And I was no slouch when it came to consuming written materials.

Sure, some of it is slop, some of it is pretty good. But I did read more.

phoronixrly•6 minutes ago

I'm sorry, are you reading more because LLMs are doing your job in the meantime or are you reading more because you're mostly reading LLM output day to day now?

delis-thumbs-7e•about 1 hour ago

I have no idea, but with ADHD and all, I have taken recently the habit of reading aloud, especially course texts, doc’s and other boring stuff I easily get distracted with. I pretend to be a BBC 4 broadcaster. It seems to work. After awhile you can stop and just read silently.

xhevahir•about 3 hours ago

There's been a lot of debate over the years about what exactly it was that Ambrose was doing differently, and whether silent reading was really so uncommon in antiquity.

RugnirViking•44 minutes ago

Reckon you could give us some explanation of the other side? What are the alternative explanations proposed? The passage here seems pretty unequivocal.

It also doesn't seem that unlikely. I know a fair few adults who mutter to themselves under their breath while reading, never having managed to kick the habit of reading aloud.

lazyasciiart•22 minutes ago

My dad told me this (“people used to always read aloud”) as a kid and I didn’t believe him, I thought he was making some kind of joke. It feels like the same kind of discovery as “some people don’t see pictures in their head”.

hizlikovboy27•about 2 hours ago

the Augustine passage is a fascinating piece of evidence, but i wonder how much we can infer from it about the wider reading habits of the ancient world.

rob74•about 2 hours ago

To get to that, we have to first think about the literacy rate in antiquity, which is estimated at 5 to 10%. And of those, most could probably read well enough to get by, but didn't routinely read longer texts. So someone who was well-enough versed in reading to not have to read the text out loud in order to understand it was probably a rare and noteworthy creature indeed...

js8•about 2 hours ago

And you can't read long texts if there aren't that many to begin with. But it raises a question - why didn't China, which invented printing press earlier, didn't fare better?

JumpCrisscross•20 minutes ago

> why didn't China, which invented printing press earlier, didn't fare better?

Moveable type was invented in the 11th century [1]. Kublai Khan moved in in the 13th. Then the Mings spent a couple centuries being autocratic menaces, Qianlong went on a pogrom of China's scholars and Europe caught up.

By the 13th century, China–uniquely–had both moveable-type presses and joint-stock companies. A combination of bad luck (the Mongols) and a tendency towards political shitshows squandered that lead.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_printing_in_East_As...

BariumBlue•about 1 hour ago

I would imagine most reading would be "let me read that sign" and not much else. To most folks, writing was probably logographs - "Ah, I've seen that collection of letters before, that meant 'pub' "

crooked-v•43 minutes ago

Public signage with words was basically nonexistent in the pre-modern era. Why bother? The overhead of getting literate people was reserved for the stuff that couldn't be communicated in symbols, like keeping records for the taxman or contracts to prevent future land disputes.

21asdffdsa12•about 1 hour ago

Imagine how creepy a reader must seem to a ancient uneducated analphabet.

Guy looks down at artifact, eyes flicker, pages flipped- then looks up: "Now i know.."

cultofmetatron•21 minutes ago

"silent spell casting"

monideas•about 2 hours ago

“Now Hannah was praying in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice could not be heard.”

Samuel 1:13

The Hebrew says literally “speaking on her heart”

itchingsphynx•33 minutes ago

That example is prayer not reading, but yes there’s many Hebrew examples of meditating in the heart because most texts were memorised aurally rather than read directly.

A first century explicit example of private reading aloud is Acts 8:28–30 Philip runs up and "heard him reading" (ἤκουσεν αὐτοῦ ἀναγινώσκοντος).

Ten minutes of Claude searching the Hebrew and Greek scriptural texts came up with no examples that are explicitly private silent reading of text.

monideas•2 minutes ago

In this case it was a bespoke extemporaneous prayer, not something memorized but your point still stands. This is not an example of reading but it is used for the basis of the institution of the silent Amidah prayer according to the Talmud, even then of course it would have been memorized but today it is read from a prayer book.