Deafness and Muteness:

[beecee]

On another form we had a "god fearing" member who claimed he was "dumb" In the opinion of many on that forum, including myself, he was actually out to gain some sympathy after being "put down"many times in scientific debate. 

This sparked my interest soley because when I was a kid, I actually had a cousin who was born profoundly deaf, and couldn't really talk either. Obviously her and others born profoundly deaf, cannot hear sound to "learn"how to talk. So in effect she was not really "mute". Another reason why this person from another forum  claims were doubted. I mean it simply isn't acceptable to call a person who cannot talk as "dumb" and insulting to boot.

After some research I became aware that being born mute was fairly rare. https://healthyliving.azcentral.com/what-are-the-odds-of-being-born-mute-12573591.html it is extraordinarily rare for a person to be born mute and calculating the exact odds of this occurrence happening is practically impossible. Muteness may result from two conditions: physical muteness, where the person has a problem with the throat or vocal chords rendering them unable to make sounds; and deafness, which the person can make the sounds but not speak.

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In my childhood, due to interactions with my cousin who was 15 years older then myself, I learnt the sign language generally used by those profoundly deaf and having never learnt to talk. But on occasions when watching news telecasts particularly North American news items, there is sometimes a person on the sideline using sign language to help obviously those that can't hear. It is not the sign language I learnt many years ago at about 8 years of age. So is this just a North American concept? Or has the signs changed over those many years? 

 

[beecee]

3 hours ago, beecee said:

On another form we had a "god fearing" member who claimed he was "dumb" In the opinion of many on that forum, including myself, he was actually out to gain some sympathy after being "put down"many times in scientific debate. 

This sparked my interest soley because when I was a kid, I actually had a cousin who was born profoundly deaf, and couldn't really talk either. Obviously her and others born profoundly deaf, cannot hear sound to "learn"how to talk. So in effect she was not really "mute". Another reason why this person from another forum  claims were doubted. I mean it simply isn't acceptable to call a person who cannot talk as "dumb" and insulting to boot.

After some research I became aware that being born mute was fairly rare. https://healthyliving.azcentral.com/what-are-the-odds-of-being-born-mute-12573591.html it is extraordinarily rare for a person to be born mute and calculating the exact odds of this occurrence happening is practically impossible. Muteness may result from two conditions: physical muteness, where the person has a problem with the throat or vocal chords rendering them unable to make sounds; and deafness, which the person can make the sounds but not speak.

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In my childhood, due to interactions with my cousin who was 15 years older then myself, I learnt the sign language generally used by those profoundly deaf and having never learnt to talk. But on occasions when watching news telecasts particularly North American news items, there is sometimes a person on the sideline using sign language to help obviously those that can't hear. It is not the sign language I learnt many years ago at about 8 years of age. So is this just a North American concept? Or has the signs changed over those many years? 

 

OK, I believe I have my question answered.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sign_languages

There are perhaps three hundred sign languages in use around the world today. The number is not known with any confidence; new sign languages emerge frequently through creolization and de novo (and occasionally through language planning). In some countries, such as Sri Lanka and Tanzania, each school for the deaf may have a separate language, known only to its students and sometimes denied by the school; on the other hand, countries may share sign languages, though sometimes under different names (Croatian and Serbian, Indian and Pakistani). Deaf sign languages also arise outside educational institutions, especially in village communities with high levels of congenital deafness, but there are significant sign languages developed for the hearing as well, such as the speech-taboo languages used in aboriginal Australia. Scholars are doing field surveys to identify the world's sign languages.

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So, probably both. Hmmm, not sure how logical or sensible that is, when we think of the braille concept for the blind...although that aint perfect either, but slightly more logical I suggest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille

Under international consensus, most braille alphabets follow the French sorting order for the 26 letters of the basic Latin alphabet, and there have been attempts at unifying the letters beyond these 26 (see international braille), though differences remain, for example in German Braille and the contractions of English Braille. This unification avoids the chaos of each nation reordering the braille code to match the sorting order of its print alphabet, as happened in Algerian Braille, where braille codes were numerically reassigned to match the order of the Arabic alphabet and bear little relation to the values used in other countries (compare modern Arabic Braille, which uses the French sorting order), and as happened in an early American version of English Braille, where the letters w, x, y, z were reassigned to match English alphabetical order. A convention sometimes seen for letters beyond the basic 26 is to exploit the physical symmetry of braille patterns iconically, for example, by assigning a reversed n to ñ or an inverted s to sh. (See Hungarian Braille and Bharati Braille, which do this to some extent.)

 

[NNY]

Hi beecee,

You might find the village of Al-Sayyid kind of interesting.

YouTube link.

[beecee]

1 hour ago, NNY said:

Hi beecee,

You might find the village of Al-Sayyid kind of interesting.

YouTube link.

Thanks NNY

[mistermack]

My brother-in-law's daughter is profoundly deaf, she was tested as the most deaf person in the county years ago. She does make sounds as she signs, but they are very quiet, and clicky, and not really of help except to those who know her. But it's definitely the lack of hearing that caused her inability to talk. I have read that you need to be able to hear in the first few years of your life, to learn to speak well. 

I'd be interested to know how someone like her, ( she's now in her thirties ) would progress speech-wise if she got a cochlear implant. According to the speech theory, it wouldn't enable her to learn to speak, her brain has passed the vital years. But that might be complete rubbish. I'm guessing.

I'm trying to remember what her laugh is like. I've never thought to take notice, so I can't say if she laughs out loud or not.

[StringJunky]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

I'd be interested to know how someone like her, ( she's now in her thirties ) would progress speech-wise if she got a cochlear implant. According to the speech theory, it wouldn't enable her to learn to speak, her brain has passed the vital years. But that might be complete rubbish. I'm guessing.

No, it's not rubbish. There's a critical period for language acquisition. She's got her own type of internal dialogue now. I'm 65-75dB deaf for speech myself. I use a big chunk of lip-reading to fill in the gaps with a hearing aid. I'm sure my internal dialogue is nothing like a hearing person's.

Edited June 17, 2018 by StringJunky