Seen but Not Heard

One of the wonders of the human mind is our capacity for language and our ability to adapt it. However, without hearing, learning a language usually becomes a function of the eyes, not the ears. Happily, the desire to communicate burns deep within the human soul, enabling us to overcome any apparent obstacle. This need has led Deaf people to develop many signed languages worldwide. As they have come in contact with one another, having been born into Deaf families or brought together at specialized schools and in the community, the result has been the development of a sophisticated language that is custom-made for the eyes—a signed language.a

For Carl, from the United States, this language was a gift from his Deaf parents.b Although deaf from birth, he was able to label items, string signs together, and express abstract thoughts in American Sign Language (ASL) at a very young age. Most Deaf babies of signing Deaf parents begin to produce their first signs by the age of 10 to 12 months. In the book A Journey Into the Deaf-World, it is explained that “linguists now recognize that the capacity to acquire a language naturally and to pass it on to one’s children is rooted deeply in the brain. Whether the capacity surfaces in a signed language or a spoken language is quite immaterial.”

Sveta was born in Russia into a third-generation Deaf family. Along with her Deaf brother, she acquired Russian Sign Language. By the time she was enrolled in a preschool for Deaf children at the age of three, her natural signed-language skills were well developed. Sveta admits: “The other Deaf children did not know signed language and would learn from me.” Many Deaf children have had Hearing parents who did not sign. Signed language was often passed down at school from older Deaf children to younger ones, enabling them to communicate easily.

Today more and more Hearing parents are learning to sign with their children. As a result, these Deaf youngsters are able to communicate effectively prior to attending school. In Canada, this was true of Andrew, whose parents can hear. They learned signed language and used it with him at an early age, providing him with a language foundation on which he could build in the years to come. Now the whole family can communicate with one another on any topic in signed language.

Deaf people are able to formulate thoughts, abstract and concrete, without needing to think in a spoken tongue. Just as each of us formulates thoughts in our own language, many Deaf people think in their signed language.

Variety of Languages

Worldwide, Deaf communities have either originated their own signed language or incorporated aspects of other signed languages. Some of the vocabulary of ASL today was derived from French Sign Language 180 years ago. This was combined with what was then already used indigenously in the United States, and it has become what is now ASL. Signed languages develop over many years and experience refinements with each successive generation.

Normally, signed languages do not follow the socio-geographic movements of spoken languages. In Puerto Rico, for example, ASL is used, though Spanish is spoken. Although English is spoken in both England and the United States, the former uses British Sign Language, which differs greatly from ASL. Also, Mexican Sign Language differs from the many signed languages of Latin America.

When studying a signed language, one is impressed by the subtle complexities and the richness of expression. Most topics, thoughts, or ideas can be expressed with signed language. Happily, there is a growing trend to produce literature for Deaf people on videocassettes, using natural signed language to tell stories, express poetry, give historical accounts, and teach Bible truth. In many countries signed-language literacy is on the rise.

Reading What Has Never Been Heard

When reading, Hearing people generally refer to auditory memory as they recall the sounds of words. So much of what they read is understood because they have heard it before. In most languages the written words do not depict or resemble the ideas they represent. Many Hearing people learn this arbitrary system or written code by pairing it with the sounds of spoken language so as to read with understanding. Try to imagine, though, never having heard a sound, a word, or language being spoken in all your life! It can be difficult and frustrating to learn an arbitrary written code for a language that cannot be heard. It is no wonder that reading such a language presents a great challenge to Deaf people, especially to those who have no residual hearing or who have never heard!

Many educational centers for Deaf children around the world have discovered the benefits of using signed language early in the child’s development of language. (See boxes on pages 20 and 22.) Such have found that exposing the young Deaf child to a natural signed language and developing a linguistic base will lay the basis for greater achievement academically and socially as well as for the later acquisition of a written language.

A United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization commission on Deaf education stated: “It is no longer acceptable to neglect sign language, or to avoid taking an active part in its development in educational programmes for the deaf.” It must be said, though, that whatever educational choice parents make for their Deaf child, the full participation of both parents in their child’s development is of critical importance.—See the article “To Reach My Child, I Learned Another Language,” in the Awake! of November 8, 1996.

Understanding the Deaf World

When Deaf children become Deaf adults, they often confess that what they wanted most from their parents was communication. When his aged mother was dying, Jack, a Deaf man, attempted to communicate with her. She struggled to tell him something but wasn’t able to write it and didn’t know signed language. She then fell into a coma and later died. Jack felt haunted by those final frustrating moments. This experience moved him to advise parents of Deaf children: “If you want fluent communication and a meaningful exchange of ideas, emotions, thoughts and love with your deaf child, sign it. . . . It’s too late for me. Is it too late for you?”

For years many have misunderstood the experience of Deaf people. Some have held the view that the deaf know almost nothing because they hear nothing. Parents have been overly protective of their Deaf children or fearful of letting them into the outside world. In some cultures Deaf people have been mistakenly described as “dumb” or “mute,” although Deaf people are usually not vocally impaired. They simply cannot hear. Others have viewed signed language as primitive or inferior to spoken language. It’s no wonder that with such ignorance, some Deaf people have felt oppressed and misunderstood.

As a young child growing up in the United States in the 1930’s, Joseph was enrolled in a special school for Deaf children that prohibited the use of signed language. He and his classmates were often disciplined for using signs, even when they could not understand the speech of their teachers. How they longed to understand and to be understood! In countries where education for Deaf children is limited, some grow up with very little formal education. For example, an Awake! correspondent in western Africa said: “Life for the majority of the Deaf in Africa is tough and miserable. Of all the disabled, the Deaf are probably the most neglected and least understood.”

All of us share a need to be understood. Sadly, when some see a Deaf person, they only see someone who “can’t.” Perceived inabilities can blur out the true abilities of a Deaf person. In contrast, many Deaf people see themselves as a people who “can.” They are able to communicate fluently with one another, develop self-respect, and achieve academically, socially, and spiritually. Unfortunately, the mistreatment that many Deaf people have experienced has led some to mistrust Hearing people. However, when Hearing ones show a sincere interest in understanding Deaf culture and natural signed language and see Deaf ones as a people who “can,” all are benefited.

“New York to Teach Deaf in Sign Language, Then English”

That headline appeared in The New York Times of March 5, 1998. Felicia R. Lee wrote: “In what is being hailed as a landmark change in the education of deaf students, the city’s only public school for the deaf will be overhauled so that all teachers will teach primarily in a sign language based on symbols and gestures.” She explains that many educators “say that research shows that the primary language of deaf people is visual, not verbal, and that schools using their preferred method, called American Sign Language, educate students better than other schools do.

“They say deaf students should be treated like bilingual students, not disabled ones.”

Professor Harlan Lane, of Northeastern University, Boston, said: “I think [the New York school] is in the vanguard of a movement.” He told Awake! that the ultimate aim is to teach English as a second, reading language.