As a hearing person, do you converse with your hands or with your mouth – your voice? I think you’re likely to say: ‘with my voice’ but even as you reply to me, I’ll see your face change, you’ll look at me in surprise, you might have leaned a little backwards if you were surprised or stayed in place and looked at me with focus. [1]

And this is all you and I are seeing each other do, we’re processing the other cues the other person sets up in the conversation. And because I’ll always think faster than you speak, I’ll have the time to see the entire gift-box of the message that you’re passing me: white ribbons, smooth creases and all.

It’s interesting, isn’t it? How fast you and I can set up non-verbal cues, do body tilts, use our faces to talk to each other. The wrapping paper changing from tired wine-red to a pink that makes you feel swaddled as we pass it to each other. So, what about a language that based itself entirely on this? Its gift-box made from only this modality – this visual-spatial modality in which you see my messages and I make them in space.

Do you already know where I’m getting at? I’m talking about sign languages which don’t use sound and instead are produced by the hands. And there isn’t just one sign language spread across the world; there are 159 sign languages listed in Ethnologue (Sign Language | Ethnologue Free, n.d.) and as rich and varied as spoken languages. See (Bauman & Murray, 2017), (Emmorey, 2023) and (Pfau, 2010) among others to read further.

To begin, an important distinction needs to be made between non-verbal communication and sign languages : the first is when “we perceive information that is not written or spoken” and “touch, taste, seeing, hearing, smells, signs, symbols, colours, facial expressions, gestures, posture, and intuition are the primary sources of the non-verbal messages we receive” (The Power of Nonverbal Communication : How You Act Is More Important Than What You Say, n.d.). Non-verbal communication differs cross-culturally.

On the other hand, sign languages are “fully-fledged, natural languages articulated in the visual-spatial modality” (Baker, 2016). They are distinct from the spoken language of the same geographical area and have their own lexicon and grammar. Sign languages further differ from each other as spoken languages do – with the study of differences and similarities in sign languages being a young, growing field of research called sign language typology. One aspect that has been studied relatively significantly is sign language negation. Sentential negation, i.e., forming a negative sentence – “I did not buy the fish” versus “I bought the fish” – is carried out in all sign languages studied to date by the use of manual and non-manual markers. (De Vos & Pfau, 2015)

A manual marker or manual sign (note: not all signs are markers) can, for example, have the grammatical function of negative particles, with a spoken equivalent being the Dutch niet. Non-manual markers can be “facial expressions and head and body movements” (De Vos & Pfau, 2015). And so, a clear difference begins to emerge between the non-verbal communication that you and I’d use in our conversation and the grammaticalized employment of non-manual markers, and in general, the sign languages used by native Deaf signers.

Hopefully, our written conversation has brought you closer to (the societal aspect of) sign language studies. A question I can raise now is: why was there sign language oppression? While providing a full and detailed answer for this question – which is perhaps unfortunately global in scope – is beyond the capacity of this article, I attempt to provide the reader a look under the surface and encourage them to investigate further on their own.

To talk about sign language is to talk about “the core of Deaf culture” (admin, 2024) and the “history of Deaf people is intertwined with the history of their education” (Betten 2013).

The earliest record about claims over deaf people are of Aristotle from 355 BC (a hearing person) who had negative beliefs about them and thought that only with hearing, and thus speech, was education possible. (Charles Michel de l’ Epee | Encyclopedia.Com, n.d.; The History of Sign Language and Interpretation, 2017).

Despite no evidential backing, this theory grew popular. Scholars of that time were convinced that deaf people couldn’t be educated. And it went unchallenged in Europe for the longest time until the first contradiction in the 16th century by Gerolamo. Further, in 1755, a French Catholic priest Charles Michel de l’ Epee founded the first free public sign language school for the hearing-impaired. (The History of Sign Language and Interpretation, 2017)

While he was not opposed to teaching deaf people speech, l’ Epee is still considered the first “manualist” teacher as he advocated for using signs in deaf education and asserted that deaf people had their own visual language which “was every bit as expressive as spoken French”. He felt that the visual system was the appropriate teaching method, especially in large classrooms. (The History of Sign Language and Interpretation, 2017; Moores, 2018)

Two opposing views on deaf education existed in Europe and the United States in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Oralism, which opposed signing and advocated teaching speech and manualism which supported that signing was the natural form of communication for deaf people, and thus should be the language of instruction. The conflict continued until –

Finally, in 1880, the Milan Conference banned the use of sign language in EU and US schools. The author personally opines that this edition’s theme is an excellent description for this Conference’s decision.

Descartes said that “Signs naturally lead to language. This means a natural predisposition to reasoning”. The strongest evidence to the contrary is, however, in the following Deaf statements:

“I cannot understand how a language like sign language – this richest in expressions, the most energetic, the most incalculably advantageous in its universal intelligibility [2] – is still so neglected and that only the Deaf speak it (as it were). That is, I confess, one of those irrationalities of the human mind that I cannot explain.”

– Pierre Desloges

“The sign language used by the Deaf is not simply a mimicking of English; it is its own language with its own grammar, syntax, and inflection.”

– Marlee Matlin

“We have our own culture, our own community. A lot of people don’t realize that. They just assume that Deaf people are very unfortunate, very disabled, but no.”

– Nyle DiMarco

“Me being Deaf isn’t the problem. There is nothing wrong with being Deaf; it’s society that is the problem.”

– Rose Ayling Ellis

[1] – https://youtu.be/HNXLg5KSqFk?si=1VYQfmjEN6m1RWBX gives a basic explanation of non-verbal communication, including gestures in relation with the different sign languages in the world.

[2] – the statement refers to iconicity in sign languages, i.e., a (somewhat) transparent relationship between the form of a sign and its meaning. Consider the ASL signs for HOUSE, the BSL signs for CAT and KNIFE and such. This statement does not mean that there is one international sign language used by Deaf people worldwide.