The Collaborative International Dictionary
nonliterate \nonliterate\ adj. not using a writing system; -- of societies, cultures, or tribes. [Narrower terms: uncivilized (vs. civilized)]
Syn: preliterate.
Wiktionary
a. Not literate; illiterate n. A nonliterate person.
WordNet
adj. used of a society that has not developed writing [syn: preliterate]
Usage examples of "nonliterate".
Now when we turn to the primitive mythologies of the nonliterate peoples of this earth, what we immediately find is that, without exception, they are of the first, or affirmative kind.
How else can one account for the fact that white English colonists created a literate, food-producing, industrial democracy, within a few decades of colonizing a continent whose inhabitants after more than 40,000 years were still nonliterate hunter-gatherers?
How, except by postulating deficiencies in the Aborigines themselves, can one account for the fact that white English colonists apparently created a literate, food-producing, industrial democracy, within a few decades of colonizing a continent whose inhabitants after more than 40,000 years were still nonliterate nomadic hunter-gatherers?
The Iliad and Odyssey were composed and transmitted by nonliterate bards for nonliterate listeners, and not committed to writing until the development of the Greek alphabet hundreds of years later.
In the 13,000 years since the end of the last Ice Age, some parts of the world developed literate industrial societies with metal tools, other parts developed only nonliterate farming societies, and still others retained societies of hunter-gatherers with stone tools.