Demotheus

“Wub en tarnayzhun!?”

10/10 reply of the century. 

I’d say your answer lies in the lore: 

Everyone (provided they’re a descendant born on the material plane) is able to read and understand the symbols at a base level, in the same way everyone with sight is able to understand a painting’s subject from an artist using realism as their technique, regardless of that individual’s ability to read or a shared language with the artist.

That doesn’t mean, therefore, that everyone knows what the symbols are, how many there are or what they each mean etc. This also applies in the ability write the symbols in an appropriate manner. Imagine if people could only read in Times New Roman. You might’ve seen a word written in Times New Roman, sure, but chances are when you try and write it yourself it’s going to be in Comic Sans or Calibri unless you have an in-depth understanding of the words and the alphabet they’re formed from.

If you’re intending for your character, therefore, to be able to write and utilise the Material Alphabet then your character is going to have to either be a currently accepted (or former) Further Alchemist, Rune Smith, Blood Mage, Elemental Shaman or practitioner of Voidal Feeling and is going to have to discover and teach themselves the symbols through experimentation and trial and error (bearing in mind there are ninety symbols at present and not all of them are applicable to each field mentioned – for instance, a blood mage will easily pick up on the symbols as they’re given the inherent ability to understand Blood Runes when they touch a blood shard, and these runes in turn are identical to many in the Material Alphabet, but there is no blood rune for ‘Push’, meaning a blood mage would be unlikely to uncover that letter from the material alphabet on their own. The inverse applies for Runesmiths, and a different scenario arises with Elementalists who wouldn’t really have any business studying the non-elemental runes) or they’re going to have to be taught how to properly use the symbols by someone already versed.