Deaf Culture Terminology #1
Alexander Graham Bell
An eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone. He had a love-hate relationship with the Deaf community.
Jean Massieu
Apioneering Deaf educator, having been born Deaf, and having five other Deaf siblings. He taught at the famous school for the Deaf in Paris where Laurent Clerc was one of his students. Later he founded a Deaf school in Lille, France.
Creolized
To cause (a pidginized language) to become a creole in a speech community.
Pidgin Signed English (PSE)
Used to describe the different contact languages that arise between the English language and either British Sign Language, New Zealand Sign Language, Auslan or American Sign Language, but the term is increasingly falling out of favor.
Pierre Desloges
Wrote what may be the first book published by a deaf person.
Jacob Pereire
An academic and the first teacher of deaf-mutes in France.
Laurent Clerc
"The Apostle of the deaf in America" by generations of American deaf people. He was taught by Abbe Sicard, at the famous school for the Deaf in Paris, Institution Nationale des Sourds-Muets. With Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, he co-founded the first school for the deaf in North America, the Hartford Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb on April 15, 1817 in the old Bennet's City Hotel, Hartford, Connecticut. The school was subsequently re-named the American School for the Deaf and in 1821 moved to its present site. The school remains the oldest existing school for the deaf in North America.
American School for the Deaf
(Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons/ American Asylum for Deaf-mutes) The oldest permanent school for the deaf in the United States. It was founded April 15, 1817 in Hartford, Connecticut by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc and became a state-supported school in 1817.
Abbe Sicard
A French abbe and instructor of the deaf
Pedro Ponce De Leon
A Spanish Benedictine monk who is often credited as being "the first teacher for the deaf".
Gallaudet University
A federally chartered university for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing located in Washington, D.C. It was the first school for the advanced education of the deaf and hard of hearing in the world, and is still the only higher education institution in which all programs and services are specifically designed to accommodate Deaf and hard of hearing students. Hearing students are admitted to the graduate school, and a small number are also admitted as undergraduates each year. The university was named after Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, a notable figure in the advancement of Deaf education.
Milan Conference of 1880 (Congress of Milan)
A historic event in deaf education that nearly led to the death of sign language.
Manual Alphabet
A manual alphabet that augments the vocabulary of Sign Language when spelling individual letters of a word is the preferred or only option, such as with proper names or the titles of works.
Edmund Booth
A native of Massachusetts, Edmund Booth was deafened and totally blinded in one eye by meningitis when he was 4. After graduating from the "Hartford Asylum" in 1830, he worked as a teacher. Craving independence, he settled in Anamosa, Iowa, and helped found the Iowa School for the Deaf. After the Gold Rush began, Booth journeyed to California, and was fairly successful in his gold-mining endeavors, returning to Iowa in 1854. In 1856, he began his career as an editor and publisher. In 1880, the first National Deaf-Mute Convention was held in Cincinnati. Booth, who chaired the gathering, was nominated for the presidency, but declined, fearing he was too old. Nonetheless, he helped found the National Association of the Deaf. He chaired its National Executive Committee, advocating for Deaf rights to the end of his long, vigorous life.
Charles-Michel de l'Épée
A philanthropic educator of 18th-century France who has become known as the "Father of the Deaf".
Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech
A private school located in Northampton, Massachusetts that specializes in educating deaf children using the oral method through the assistance of hearing aids and cochlear implants. Clarke School for the Deaf was founded in 1867 in Northampton, Massachusetts as the first permanent oral school for the Deaf in the United States and has gained an international reputation as a pioneer and a leader in the field of auditory/oral education.
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet
A renowned American pioneer in the education of the Deaf.
Alexander Graham Bell Association
A resource, support network and advocate for listening, learning, talking and living independently with hearing loss.
William Stokoe
A scholar who researched American Sign Language (ASL) extensively while he worked at Gallaudet University.
Subject-Verb-Object (SVO)
A sentence structure where the subject comes first, the verb second, and the object third.
Visible Speech
A series of symbols that that showed speech-the position and movement of the lips, throat, and tongue when making sounds.
Martha's Vineyard Sign Language
A sign language once widely used on the island of Martha's Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts, U.S., from the early 18th century to the year 1952. It was remarkable for its use by both deaf and hearing people in the community; consequently, deafness did not become a barrier to participation in public life. Martha's Vineyard Sign Language is also notable for the role it played in the development of American Sign Language.
Contact signs
A variety or style of language that arises from contact between a deaf sign language and a spoken language (or the written or manually coded form of the spoken language).
London Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb
First public school for the Deaf in Britain
Chilmark, Massachusetts
Had the highest concentration of deaf people on the island, the average was 1 in 25; in a section of Chilmark called Squibnocket, as much as a quarter of the population of 60 was deaf.
Deaf Clubs
In most cities, deaf people established clubs that became centers for social life. Some clubs owned their buildings, but most made do with a rented clubroom over a downtown store or bar. A "Deaf club" was more than a place for card games and conversation. Clubs hosted social events as varied as holiday parties, lectures, fundraisers, plays, and performances by traveling deaf comedians. Clubs also sponsored athletic events and group outings.
Mason Fitch Cogswell
Influenced the first permanent school for the deaf in North America was founded in Hartford, and his daughter Alice was its first pupil.
National Association of the Deaf (NAD)
National bodies that represent Deaf people and the Deaf community in their respective countries. They are usually members of the World Federation of the Deaf and advocate for sign language.
Henniker, New Hampshire
One of the three largest New England Deaf community in the nineteenth century.
Martha's Vineyard. Massachusetts
One of the three largest New England Deaf community in the nineteenth century.
Sandy River, Maine
One of the three largest New England Deaf community in the nineteenth century.
ASL Syntax
Primarily conveyed through a combination of word order and non-manual features. Early accounts of word order, among other issues, were often confused because non-manual features were not considered.
Gloss
Refers to writing a language in another language, or rather, not a translation but a transcription. In the case of ASL it would include symbols understood within that community.
Manually Coded English (MCE)
Representations of spoken languages in a gestural-visual form; that is, "sign language" versions of spoken languages. Unlike the sign languages that have evolved naturally in Deaf communities, which have distinct spatial structures, manually coded languages are the invention of hearing people, and mostly follow the grammar of the spoken language — or, more precisely, of the written form of the spoken language. They have been mainly used in deaf education and by sign language interpreters, although they have had some influence on Deaf sign languages where their implementation was widespread.
Cherology
Synonyms of phonology and phoneme previously used in the study of sign languages.
Minimal Language
Terms used to refer to individuals who have no language skills in ASL, LSQ, English, French, or any other language.
Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris
The famous school for the Deaf founded by Charles-Michel de l'Épée in 1760 in Paris, France. On July 29, 1791, the French legislature approved government funding for the school and it was renamed: "Institution Nationale des Sourds-Muets à Paris."
Braidwood's Academy for the Deaf and Dumb
The first school for the Deaf in Britain.
Alice Cogswell
The inspiration to Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet for the creation of the now American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut.
