Loud Hands
American Sign Language is the language of the Deaf community in America. That statement means that ASL is how Deaf people communicate, but it is not all that it means. Because to Deaf people, sign language is more than just a language. It is a vehicle for the preservation and transmission of a unique Deaf culture, separate from the hearing culture and possessed of its own traditions and customs.
ASL originated in deaf education, the result of a French system used in instruction margin with the various home sign systems used by students. This language spread quickly in the early 19th century, but the hearing population thought that it wasn't a full language. They thought that the deaf used such a primitive system because they had no better option. But fortunately, hearing people could give them a better option. Because they can see, they can read lips. And because they can produce sound, they can mimic lip movements, and learn to use spoken language.
This "oralist" approach quickly spread as deaf schools began abandoning sign with the aim of integrating the Deaf into hearing society. Italians have to learn English, Deaf people have to learn to speak. But Deaf voices were not heard in that process. If they were, then there would have been someone defending the use of sign language as preserving a culture. A culture that includes customs like unique namesigns that were given to people who joined the community and stuck with them for their whole lives.
Academic research in the 1960s showed the hearing world that sign languages were real languages, and that stemmed the bleeding from the damage inflicted by oralism. But didn't completely heal it. The ADA requires sign language interpreters as an accommodation in civic life, and schools for hearing people offer courses in ASL. But most hearing people are still not familiar with sign languages. They still think of it as gesture, or think that fingerspelling in the manual alphabet is the whole language. The fight's not over.
ASL originated in deaf education, the result of a French system used in instruction margin with the various home sign systems used by students. This language spread quickly in the early 19th century, but the hearing population thought that it wasn't a full language. They thought that the deaf used such a primitive system because they had no better option. But fortunately, hearing people could give them a better option. Because they can see, they can read lips. And because they can produce sound, they can mimic lip movements, and learn to use spoken language.
This "oralist" approach quickly spread as deaf schools began abandoning sign with the aim of integrating the Deaf into hearing society. Italians have to learn English, Deaf people have to learn to speak. But Deaf voices were not heard in that process. If they were, then there would have been someone defending the use of sign language as preserving a culture. A culture that includes customs like unique namesigns that were given to people who joined the community and stuck with them for their whole lives.
Academic research in the 1960s showed the hearing world that sign languages were real languages, and that stemmed the bleeding from the damage inflicted by oralism. But didn't completely heal it. The ADA requires sign language interpreters as an accommodation in civic life, and schools for hearing people offer courses in ASL. But most hearing people are still not familiar with sign languages. They still think of it as gesture, or think that fingerspelling in the manual alphabet is the whole language. The fight's not over.
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