Deaf people around the world communicate using sign language as distinct from spoken language in their every day lives. A Sign Language is a visual language that uses a system of manual, facial and body movements as the means of communication. Sign language is not an universal language, and different sign languages are used in different countries, like the many spoken languages all over the world.
https://wfdeaf.org/our-work/focus-areas/sign-language
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A sign language (also signed language) is a language which chiefly uses manual communication to convey meaning, as opposed to acoustically conveyed sound patterns. This can involve simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to express a speaker’s thoughts. Sign languages share many similarities with spoken languages (sometimes called “oral languages”, which depend primarily on sound), which is why linguists consider both to be natural languages. Although there are also some significant differences between signed and spoken languages, such as how they use space grammatically, sign languages show the same linguistic properties and use the same language faculty as do spoken languages.[1][2] They should not be confused with body language, which is a kind of non-linguistic communication. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_language
Mm, There are so many reasons to known where, who wrote, who was the first person created sign language for the D/deaf people and the lists go on…. Not to be confused with sign language as sign boards e.g. Keep Calm, Do not feed the cat, etc. In my theory, sign language gives benefit for all kind of people including children with disabilities, not just D/deaf people because there are people/children with speech impaired or learning disabilities out there and they can not communicate with their family even friends. One of my experiences, I am teaching a group of young adults with multiple disabilities including learning disabilities and deaf. More than four years ago, they came to the central library in the city of Hamilton where I am teaching NZSL (New Zealand Sign Language) and first of all; they were in shell/fragile life and unable to communicate back to their staff and family. Every week, I noticed there has been developing when they starting to open up and able to communicate. Today they were able to help and communicate in sign language to their staff, friends and family. Their support staff even managers learnt to communicate with them easily without having frustration, conflict in conversation e.g. throwing at the staff or friends in anger. My method of teaching is the tool for them – basic sign language, visual sign shapes, emotion signs and body gestures.
Looking back on how sign language develops in the earliest days…. Here is one of the examples here – John Bulwer wrote the book called Chirologia in 1644 and it was about the manual alphabets. It can be found on this website. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jbulwer.jpgThe first record of the books about sign language and deaf, was the fifth century BC by Plato and he wrote about Socrates and his comment, “If we hadn’t a voice or a tongue, and wanted to express things to one another, wouldn’t we try to make signs by moving our hands, head, and the rest of our body, just as dumb people do at present?”[4]. This quote extracts from en.wikipedia as above. When a person who can not speak and it is not a problem because this person gives any gestures such as drink, phone, etc. I have alway asked by many students who came to learn sign language, and I asked them what did they sign for glasses or drink. They replied by body gesture as in glasses or drink, and I told them that were the signs they have been doing all the times.
Sign Language plays an important role for many D/deaf people to overcome communicate with everyone in the communities around the world over many years. Sign language has changed and evolved into the system that people see today, just like people who speaks their mother’s tongue.
How does the sign language develop in the early in human history?
Think about hunter-gatherer societies, Egyptian hieroglyphs, counting tokens – in Mesopotamia, pictographs, cuneiform, and many other kinds of languages. The hunter-gatherer used their communicated tools by doing gestures and the ‘hoots’, and they were lower primates around 25,000-30,000 years BP. The making of communication when a primate group met another primate group from the outside circle, they developed a new method of the tool such as a rudimentary oral communication.
Humans rather using the word – primate, starting using painting pictures on cave walls and the painting pictures represented a story, spirit message, ritual exercise. These painting pictures can be found on the cave walls around the world today.
About 9,000 years ago or a bit more, the next communication was a counting token. This method was to use for trade or owning the property based on an agreement with one family to another family.
Another tool of communication was Cuneiform – a picture of a symbol which represented an idea or concept, ideographs and to represent sounds.
We assume that in the ancient times where a person is deaf and she/he would have difficulty speaking and learning the language. They continue to communicate with hand and facial gestures to enhance ideas in the hearing society.
The first record in the Deaf history was ca. 575-550 BC – a quote
“Deaf son (name unknown) of Croesus, king of Lydia; first recorded the deaf person in history. Croesus’ other son, Athys, was hearing and had his name preserved for posterity. Mentioned in Book I of Herodotus’ History, and in the Cyropaedia by Xenophon. (Some other sources say Croesus had only one son, deaf, named Athys, but this seems to be incorrect.) In Lydian-Greek mythology, Croesus consulted an oracle about his deaf and mute son, and was told the son would first speak only on “an unhappy day”. The legend goes on to say that when Croesus was later defeated in a battle, his life was saved when his deaf son suddenly spoke to request his father’s life be spared, although Croesus lost his empire.”
APA
Timeline of recorded deaf history – LibGuides at Gallaudet … (n.d.). Retrieved from http://libguides.gallaudet.edu/content.php?pid=352126&sid=2881782
Other examples can be found in the ancient Egypt and Greece, and it was fascinating to compare with Egypt and Greece. Because in the ancient time, during the BC era, many disabled people were not harmed by Egyptian and they lived in a generous way of life. The D/deaf people were selected by gods because of their peculiar behaviour. They were treated respectfully and educating through the use of hieroglyphs and gesture signs. In Greece, The Greeks felt better to kill any disabled people/children because the Greeks believe anyone would be the burden to society and put down to death. Yes, there are many D/deaf people were mistreated and persecuted because they were not given a chance to work on creating a language.
In Spain, in 1500’s Pedro Ponce de Leon, a Benedictine monk and he created the first sign language – “vow of silence” in the monastery. In 1620, Juan Pablo Bonet wrote a sign language dictionary and in the book he showed the outline how to learn sign language and contained the first sign language alphabet.
In France, the birth of formal sign language by Charles Michel del l’Eppe in 1775 and he was a French priest, an early advocate for deaf rights.
He established the first Deaf school which was the original public school for the deaf children. It is called the Insititution Nationale des Sourds-Muets a Paris (National Institute for Deaf-Mutes in Paris) and the school is there today. Charles Michel de l’Eppe was called the ‘ Father of the Deaf.’
How did this happen in France? One day l’Eppe was passing and stopping at one of the local house for a night. The family offered him to stay for the night, and he noticed two girls communicated differently way as body gesture. He asked the mother, and she replied that her two girls were deaf. He realised that sign language would benefit for any D/deaf children/people to communicate through school and in the society. He believed that sign language would help them a better life and able to interact with other people as their mother’s tongue.
The sign language is Old French Sign Language, and in this language, there are symbolic gestures that conveyed concepts and a sign language alphabet for the French language.
Looking at babies and their conductivities from twelve weeks to preschools, which comes first speech or gesture. To my understanding, it is the gesture before language development, social and cognitive because babies are growing all the times until they mastered their speech. They use their eyes to explores around our daily activities and grabbing our attended to them by making noises such as crying. Babies learn to memorise our mother’s tongue and who were are related to them from eight to twelve weeks and onward. That is how they are starting to use ‘coo’ or babbles words such as ‘b’,’p’ and ‘m’.
If a baby diagnosed the hearing loss and it may not/may be a problem for any parents of the deaf baby. There are plenty of resources on sign language for baby in the cognitive education around the world. Then the parents would start teaching their child in sign language in the way of the basic word such as drink, mum, dad. The child will develop a photo memory from time to time, and they learn up to 200 sign words a year than a child with speech development where it would be under 65 words. Every sign words they see, are stored in the child’s brain as a memory bank. A deaf child will develop in their way of creating and evolving a new sign language in the life.
It is the same as any teenagers developing a new word such as youse, etc. But many D/deaf teenagers and adult missed out many new words or have not come across anywhere in the newspaper, job application, health forms. It is a difficulty for any D/deaf person to keep up to date.
There are many Deaf families, and their first language is sign language of course. They communicate easily with each other in the same household even in the Deaf community. When they are outside their Deaf community into the hearing society, it brings a barrier of communicating, and they need an interpreter/communicator in the society. It is paramount for everyone because it is part of our life. I know some of the hearing children who comes from their deaf parents, and they feel embarrasses when their hearing friends come over to stay or to visit. The hearing children who I know, are brave enough to tell their hearing friends, and they do not mind. They share and learn to sign too.
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