It similarly blows my mind how far back many languages go with written accounts. My own native language wasn't written down until the 16th century, so its earlier forms are basically unattested. And the 16th writing is just a few sentences in official records and translations of certain Christian prayers. It took until the late 17th century to have a translated Bible, and for the first non-religious texts to appear. Meanwhile some other languages spoken next door had centuries old literature by then.
That's what's mind-blowing to me about pohnpei. It's an island with an airport and internet. English is the official language but according to my relative the native language is what everyone uses day to day. It has about 40k residents. Literacy is 98%.
Yet with all that, the spoken language remains unwritten. That's just wild to me.
According to Wikipedia, the two most spoken indigenous languages on Pohnpei are written with the Latin alphabet.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pohnpeian_language
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuukese_language
See the "phonology" and "orthography" sections of the respective articles. It seems like both have a standard orthography.
Very interesting.
Perhaps my family member confused the fact that the religion had no training materials for the language with there being no written version of the language. (I'm admittedly ignorant about this, I just had a conversation with them on Saturday)
I wonder if the language isn't as commonly written as it is spoken?