Deaf History Part 1

Before I get started, I had an incredible Skype date with some of my favorite people at the DCC today. Thank you Sandie! It was so nice to see some familiar faces. I shared some LSF and pieces of European Deaf history and realized that it's time to start sharing some history lessons! I've spent the last hour taking pictures of individual words in the first LSF dictionary I borrowed from the library and will post those as a mini LSF dictionary here.

** please forgive the sloppy writing for now. I'm translating this from a history book written in French, and let's be honest, I'm not that good. **

Before the dictionary, here's your history lesson of the day:

In the end of the 4th century, there existed a brief description of Deaf people. St. Jerome noticed that the deaf could learn the Gospel through signs and by using body movements in their daily conversation. St. Augustine, through his correspondence with St. Jerome, talked to a very respected Deaf family in Milan. He even said that their gestures were forming words in a language.

During the 16th century, Montaigne wrote deaf people need a manual alphabet, grammar and signs. He confirmed that the Deaf had already formed communities well before the 16th century. It wasn’t until two centuries later that people would talk about Deaf language and grammar again.

From the 1500s to the Revloution of 1789, Deaf education was reserved for only the children of wealthy families. In 1500 in Spain, Pedro Ponce de Leon, a Benedictine monk, began to educate some children of noble families. It was surely not the first time someone tried to educate the deaf, but it was the first time someone could publicly display success.

Juan Pablo Bonet followed Leon’s work. Bonet helped the students learn a manual alphabet, to which he credits St. Bonaventure. Today’s French fingerspelling is derived from that alphabet.

In England, John Wallis published in 1653 instructions on how to teach the Deaf. He is maybe the first to say that it would be useful to learn sign language in order to teach Deaf children English. A Deaf Frenchman, Etienne de Fay, proved that educators could use sign language to teach in the schools.

In the Netherlands and in Germany, teachers were not using sign language because they thought that sign language couldn’t help deaf people think in language and they believed sign language would never become a language.

In France, Jacob Rodrigue Pereire was a tutor for rich families with Deaf students. He used Bonet’s manual alphabet but refused to use gestures. Students touched his throat and tried to imitate the vibtations. The same process is still a current method in speech rehabilitation.

In 1760, it became evident that Deaf could be educated successfully. It was understood that Deaf people were intelligent and could learn a language to express their thoughts. But hearing educators didn’t think the language could replace spoken language. For obvious reason that these teachers are of hearing and, as such, they follow, willingly or unwillingly, the ideas of the time going in this direction. Don’t forget, during the 17th and 18th centuries, an educated man was a man who could speak well. No words, no thoughts, thought Aristotle. Words were the outward expression of an internal language. The ideas of Deaf individuals were ignored because they weren’t considered well educated. In the second half of the 18th century, things started to move. The famous philosophers started to think differently about the relationship between words and thoughts.

In the spirit of the 1760s, a hearing person began to investigate how the Deaf could use natural gestures. This, of course, was Charles Michel de L'Epee, an extraordinary person. Even as it was advantageous to be ordained as a priest, L'Epee often opposed the hierarchy of the church on many subjects. Some wondered if he raised questions for the sole purpose of raising controversy. Anyway, he provoked a now famous discussion about speech and sign language.

How L'Epee began his relationship with the deaf is legendary (or in the words of Barney Stinson, legen-WAIT FOR IT- dary.) It is said that he ducked into a house one day in order to escape the rain and found Deaf twin sisters. He was immediately struck by the complexity of the language they used. He understood that having grown up together, the sisters were able to develop a fairly complex language. It is possible that they were even able to teach it and perfect it within the Deaf community in Paris in an era when sign language was not respected as a language. He decided to learn sign language with them. He admitted that to learn sign language you must understand that exists independently from spoken language. His grand idea: sign language can express human thoughts the same way spoken language can.

(Brittany's interjection: let's compare American and French deaf histories for a second. Both l'Epee and Gallaudet, hearing educators, were inspired to learn and promote sign language by Deaf girls. Aside from an adorably cute passing note on their existence, they are largely absent from history. I agree, l'Epee and Gallaudet were WONDERFUL supporters of Deaf education and sign language and did incredible things for both French and American Deaf communities, but c'mon. Where are the women of early Deaf history? Why have Alice Cogswell and the French twins been relegated to the first page of the history books and never to be heard of again?)

He created a small school at his house, and after many years of observation and verification of his hypotheses, he published his first book in 1776: "Institution of Deaf Mutes," in which he developed the system he called "sign methods." This part is a rough translation, but I think what comes next is something along the lines of: to his great joy, he pissed off (provoked) hearing teachers of the Deaf all over Europe to challenge his method.

Part 2: Deaf Take Care of Themselves, or, The Birth of a Culture and the Revival of Sign Language

We have seen what the hearing thought of sign language before L'Epee. Before we turn to the actual examination of his famous sign language system, we must consider the states of Deaf society at that time and discover what they thought of their language. Obviously, many people didn't ask Deaf people about their language at this time, and there exists very little historical information on this question. What we do know, however, is that sign language was practiced not only in Paris, but all over Europe.

--->Around 1710, in Amiens, France, many decades before L'Epee, Etienne de Fay, called "the old deaf guy of Amiens." He was a professor, an architect, and a designer. He opened a school for Deaf students in the Abbaye Saint-Jean. Here, in France, is the first example of a deaf teacher educating other deaf students in sign language. (Here is a better history from another blog:http://blog.deafread.com/thedeafchild/category/05-siepees-monastery/0501-finding-monks/)



--->In 1779, the first book written by a Deaf man was published: "Obeservations a deaf-mute." Finally, a deaf man testified. He was too old to have been educated by L'Epee. Since he became deaf at the age of seven, he had time to acquire the basics of French, it can be assumed that he developed his French through hard work and a lot of reading. After de Fay, he described clearly in his book that sign language had a unique structure commonly used in France, well before L'Epee published his observations about sign language methodology. He wrote his book in order to defend the language against those who claimed that sign language didn't mean anything, namely, l'abbe Dechamps. He explained how gestures invented by a deaf people living alone or isolated in an asylum, are transformed when they join the community of deaf, which is thanks to the frequent movement of migration, spread from the countryside to the city. The charm of the French at the time, and the enthusiasm of the writing does not obscure the message: he argues that his langague can express accurately the thoughts and concepts the same way hearing people can by speaking.

We do not know exactly when, where or under what conditions sign language emerged in France. Until Desloges books in 1779, we have virtually no information on the evolution or the content of sign language. Desloges is the first to talk about the structure of sign language. As a member of the Deaf community, his testimony is particularly important.


Stay tuned for History, Part 2!

a bientôt