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example of something that actually is a visual language, so we know what
one looks like.
It is easy to assume that sign languages were invented by hearing people as
ways of translating spoken languages, like English and French, into something
the deaf could easily understand. In fact, nothing could be further from the
truth. Sign languages were invented by deaf people. Mostly they arose spon-
taneously in the nineteenth century when previously isolated deaf children
came together in schools that were created by philanthropists. Sign languages
were developed by the students in those schools, not the teachers. Indeed, up
until the 1980s many schools for the deaf actually prohibited signing because
they believed that lip reading would better help integrate the pupils into soci-
ety at large. e attempt to suppress sign language was the cause of consid-
erable suff ering since signing provides the deaf with a means of expression
comparable in richness and expressive power to spoken language.
Sign languages are not translations of spoken languages. ey are dis-
tinct languages with their own grammar and vocabularies. American Sign
Language (ASL) is quite distinct from British Sign Language (BSL) and
neither has the grammar of spoken English. New sign languages are still
being born. In Nicaragua, linguists have watched, fascinated, as a new sign
language has emerged over the past thirty years. is began to develop
with the establishment of a center for special education in 1977. It has
rapidly developed its own grammatical rules, demonstrating, among other
things, that language is an innate capability of humans.
Although sign languages are gestural and not verbal, there are great simi-
larities between the two forms. Both sign language and spoken language have
a critical period of development. If children are not provided with the social
environment for their language skills to develop in the fi rst few years of life
they will never develop fl uency. Children who have grown up with animals,
enfants sauvage , never develop fl uency because the critical period is missed.
e parts of the brain used in the understanding and production of sign
languages are the same areas used in verbal language listening and talking—
namely Wernicke ’ s area and Broca ’ s area respectively. Sign language uses
the neural sub-systems normally associated with verbal processing, even
though signs must pass through the visual pattern-fi nding machinery of
the brain to get to these areas.
VISUAL THINKING VERSUS LANGUAGEBASED
THINKING
We need a clear way of distinguishing between the visual thinking that
goes with graphic expression, and other forms of thinking, especially
In his book on the history of sign
language in America, Douglas Baynton
describes how signing was banned in
schools for the deaf in favor of speaking
and lip reading, using techniques
pioneered by Alexander Graham Bell.
1996. See Forbidden Signs: American
Culture and the Campaign Against Sign
Language. University of Chicago Press.
For more on sign languages read
Karen Emmorey ’ s Language, Cognition,
and the Brain: Insights from Sign
Language Research , Mahwah,
N.J: Erlbaum, 2002.
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