It is crucial that we urgently recognise sign language as a global language.
The blogger/historian/researcher would like to thank her mother for sending the article “A visit to Gibbet Hill led to a story” and Brian Cleary, who is deaf with a cochlear implant, for discovering the long-lost book “Gibbet Hill” by Bram Stoker. Jean decided to research Bram’s mother, Charlotte M. B. Stoker, and found the speech she wrote for the Ninth Meeting of the Dublin Statistical and Social Inquiry Society in 1863. Charlotte was an associate member, and her speech was ‘On the Necessity of a State Provision for the Education of the Deaf (and Dumb) of Ireland.’ along with the discussion by Dr. W. E. Wilde, Mr Haughton, J.P., Mr. O’Shaughnessy, Mr C. Molloy, Dr. Stewart and The Chairperson – Sir Thomas Laecom.
The 2nd International Congress on the Education of the Deaf, held in Milan, Italy, was a turning point in the history of deaf Education in 1880. It was the first International Congress for the Deaf, and it advocated for oralism over manualism. This decision had a significant and lasting impact on deaf Education and culture, shaping the methods used in many schools around the world to this day. However, it also altered our approach to sign language, leading to the global phenomenon we term Audism. This history underscores the importance of our collective role in advocating for change and understanding the past to address current issues.
Before and after the 1880s, a significant number of teachers of Deaf children lost their jobs, and Deaf professionals were prohibited from using tools to communicate in their language. This period also witnessed the decline of communication professions, such as those of Deaf artists, lawyers, writers, and professionals in various trades within the hearing world’s cultures. These events underscore the systemic discrimination faced by the Deaf community. However, despite this enormous discrimination for many years, the Deaf community has shown remarkable resilience, inspiring hope for a more inclusive future.
Let us revisit Charlotte Stoker’s speech, dated May 1863, and attached here. Can anyone understand what the past was like compared to today? https://speakingwhilefemale.co/social-issues-stoker/
Schools for the Deaf worldwide began teaching sign language to children from infancy to adolescence in the 1960s and 1990s. This Education was facilitated by hearing teachers of the Deaf until recently, when the number of Deaf teachers for Deaf children began to increase slowly.
From generation to generation, many prelingually deaf individuals have sign language as their first language. However, it is restricted due to Education and home environments where D/deaf people do not understand English, for example, in understanding complex or abstract structures in English. Generations have suffered under this restriction, and their anger and resentment towards the hearing world still run deep, as in the ableist world.
Audism – The term audism was coined in 1975 in an unpublished article written by American communication and language researcher Tom L. Humphries as a way to describe discrimination against persons who are deaf.
Recently, the World Federation of the Deaf announced the Legal Recognition of National Sign Language – Japan. We continue to ensure Rights for all D/deaf people worldwide until the Governments and people recognise our National Sign Language as equal, such as removing the barriers to natural language access to information and communication in our daily lives. For example, there is a critical need for effective communication methods to continue working in emergencies, during educational events, and in humanitarian disasters.
Currently, 41.5% of countries officially recognise the national sign language (85 out of 195), while 58.5% of countries do not recognise the national sign language (114 out of 195). These numbers mean that 81 countries have achieved Sign Language legislation, including our country, New Zealand, and our neighbouring countries: Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea.
We want to increase the awareness in Education by improving the awareness of teaching babies with hearing loss to D/deaf and other babies, such as the non-verbal communication model in sign language, and to remove the language delay as soon as possible before kindergarten and in the home environment. Many babies under 15 weeks old or older use the primary key focus, which involves visual contact in the environment, such as photo memories/sight words, rather than learning to speak by hearing the voices of the people speaking.
