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capri0mniI found a website that's up as a student resource for a particular curriculum in ASL (American Sign Language). The teacher's put up some pretty interesting stuff, including this brief (and, imnsho, chilling) history of signed languages in education: The Language of the Deaf.
I think I may want to do more research on that Milan Convention... But only when I'm in a resolutely cheerful mood, because otherwise, I'll either want to kill people, or go to bed with the covers pulled up for .... oh, I don't know ... maybe a year or so.
Anyway... that timeline of Signed Languages reminds me that I was going to a camp for handicapped children, when a) D/deaf* children were starting to be reclassified as handicapped, by government and social agencies,** b) Total Communication was just beginning to replace strict oralism, and c) I was at the perfect age to pick up a second language naturally.
What I learned at Wagon Road Camp was not true Sign Language (even though all the grown-ups told me it was [damned liars!]). But the building blocks of a visually based language got lodged in my brain in the final four years before my language centers ossified. I didn't even start to tackle Latin until well after puberty, and I took one semester of Spanish as a freshman in college. So, even though I rarely use it (with other people -- I still occassionally fingerspell, count things, and sign brief phrases to myself), ASL is the closest thing I have to a second language. And that may be why I got upset, and started hunting down resources on the Web, when I realized I was forgetting it.
Over the last few nights, I've been thinking about my relationship with sign language, and my use of it, and my relationship with Deaf-
World. On the one hand, I will never be a part of that culture -- even if both my eardrums were shattered tomorrow, I'd still have grown up in the Hearing World, and I'd carry the remnants of that culture with me till the day I died. So I admit there's an element of exoticism and fascination going on, and that part of my psyche, I find embarrassing. On the other hand, even though the Deaf don't consider deafness to be a disability, much of the Hearing World still does; a Deaf university student, for example (unless she's going to a Deaf university, like Gallaudet) will need to go to the Disabled Student Services Office for an interpreter, instead of the Foreign Language Student Services Office (even though that same university may be teaching ASL under its Foreign Language Dept). So I am more likely to cross paths with her than my nondisabled Hearing peers.
So, um, yes.
I was going to post a second link from the same site about Signing Etiquette, to give examples of how Deafness is truly a distinct culture from the Hearing World.
But now that I've written this all out, I think that's a completely different topic, altogether.
* Capital-D "Deaf" refers to the cultural group, and lowercase-d "deaf" refers to the simple inability to hear. You can be hearing and Deaf -- if you're a hearing child raised by Deaf parents, for example, and Sign is your first language. You can also be 'deaf as a post', and still be part of the Hearing world, and culture.
**The Deaf do not consider themselves to be a part of the Disability community, but part of a linguistic community, and culture (unless, of course, a Deaf person also has a disability -- it happens).
I think I may want to do more research on that Milan Convention... But only when I'm in a resolutely cheerful mood, because otherwise, I'll either want to kill people, or go to bed with the covers pulled up for .... oh, I don't know ... maybe a year or so.
Anyway... that timeline of Signed Languages reminds me that I was going to a camp for handicapped children, when a) D/deaf* children were starting to be reclassified as handicapped, by government and social agencies,** b) Total Communication was just beginning to replace strict oralism, and c) I was at the perfect age to pick up a second language naturally.
What I learned at Wagon Road Camp was not true Sign Language (even though all the grown-ups told me it was [damned liars!]). But the building blocks of a visually based language got lodged in my brain in the final four years before my language centers ossified. I didn't even start to tackle Latin until well after puberty, and I took one semester of Spanish as a freshman in college. So, even though I rarely use it (with other people -- I still occassionally fingerspell, count things, and sign brief phrases to myself), ASL is the closest thing I have to a second language. And that may be why I got upset, and started hunting down resources on the Web, when I realized I was forgetting it.
Over the last few nights, I've been thinking about my relationship with sign language, and my use of it, and my relationship with Deaf-
World. On the one hand, I will never be a part of that culture -- even if both my eardrums were shattered tomorrow, I'd still have grown up in the Hearing World, and I'd carry the remnants of that culture with me till the day I died. So I admit there's an element of exoticism and fascination going on, and that part of my psyche, I find embarrassing. On the other hand, even though the Deaf don't consider deafness to be a disability, much of the Hearing World still does; a Deaf university student, for example (unless she's going to a Deaf university, like Gallaudet) will need to go to the Disabled Student Services Office for an interpreter, instead of the Foreign Language Student Services Office (even though that same university may be teaching ASL under its Foreign Language Dept). So I am more likely to cross paths with her than my nondisabled Hearing peers.
So, um, yes.
I was going to post a second link from the same site about Signing Etiquette, to give examples of how Deafness is truly a distinct culture from the Hearing World.
But now that I've written this all out, I think that's a completely different topic, altogether.
* Capital-D "Deaf" refers to the cultural group, and lowercase-d "deaf" refers to the simple inability to hear. You can be hearing and Deaf -- if you're a hearing child raised by Deaf parents, for example, and Sign is your first language. You can also be 'deaf as a post', and still be part of the Hearing world, and culture.
**The Deaf do not consider themselves to be a part of the Disability community, but part of a linguistic community, and culture (unless, of course, a Deaf person also has a disability -- it happens).
