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The Value of the Sign-Language to the Deaf

A few isolated instances are recorded, previous to the last century, of deaf persons who, under favor able conditions, have developed for their own use a measurably complete language of signs. But it was only toward the middle of the eighteenth century that this language was used by considerable numbers of deaf-mutes. Before describing this general use, however, it is important to consider, somewhat carefully, the limitations as to means of communication which absolute deafness imposes on those who suffer from it. The means of expression possible to creatures of intelligence, by which information as to thought and feeling may be given and received, are five in number, corresponding to the senses. All expression, i.e., all communication from one intelligent being to another, must, therefore, be either audible, visible, tactile, odoric, or palatal. The senses of taste and smell are addressed so rarely and with such difficulty, for the purpose of communicating thought, that they may be left out of view. The same may be said of the sense of touch, except that, in the case of persons both blind and deaf, it becomes the main channel of communication, and may be made useful under certain conditions with such as are only deaf; as, for example, in the dark or when it is desirable to address the deaf without diverting the eye from some object-such as a landscape, a passing pageant or spectacle. George Dalgarno, in his curious and interesting work "Didascalocophus," or "The Deaf and Dumb Man's Tutor," published in Oxford in 1680, presents an alphabet arranged upon the palm of the hand, certain letters being associated with certain joints and other parts of the hand, by the use of which one may communicate with a deaf person without demanding the attention of his eyes, his hand being touched by the fingers of the speaker so that words are rapidly spelt. The Morse telegraph alphabet may also be made use of in communicating through the sense of touch, by giving taps or pressures of varying length as to time, the hand of one resting lightly on the arm of the other. Visible expression employs a great variety of forms in the accomplishment of its purpose, but these forms may be grouped in two perfectly distinct classes; the gestural, which produce their effects only from moment to moment, having no enduring quality, and the graphic, which are more or less permanent. Audible expression, almost infinite as it is in variety, is susceptible also of division into two great classes, articulate and inarticulate, the former comprising all forms of word utterance, and the latter including cries, moans, sighs, music, percussions, and explosions. Among all these possible means of transmitting intelligence from one to another, it will readily be seen that the three principal means of communicating thought and feeling made use of by man are: 1, articulate speech addressed to the sense of hearing; 2, gestural; and 3, graphic expression presented to the sense of sight. By gestural expression must be understood all positions and movements of the body or any of its members, including the countenance, and all noiseless signals, such as are made use of in military or engineering operations, on the sea, on roads, or on rivers. In short, all devices for communicating information through the eye of man, which are not in any manner recorded or made permanent. Graphic expression will then include all forms of writing and printing, all productions in the fine arts, all marks, of whatever character, that are in any degree permanent, and are designed to communicate information or to express thought and feeling. And the range of this form of expression is wide enough to embrace at one extreme the Duomo of Milan, or Milton's noblest poem, and at the other the cattle brand of a Texan cow-boy, or the blaze of a backwoodsman's axe in the primeval forest. In determining the value of gestural expression to the deaf, it is necessary to keep constantly before the mind the fact that, where hearing does not exist, no mental impressions can be received through the means of articulate speech. …