Deaf Culture: Myths & Facts

Christina Walling-Zhimomi
Audiologist & Speech Language Pathologist

1.    Myth: They are “Deaf and dumb” or “Deaf and mute”
Fact: They are JUST “Deaf”. There is no “and” after the word “Deaf”. The terms “dumb” and “mute” are extremely offensive to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing population and have no scientific basis behind them. 

Deaf and dumb: This term was used during the medieval English era. Greek philosopher, Aristotle called them “deaf and dumb” because he deemed the deaf people incapable of being taught, of learning or of having reasoned thinking.The word “dumb” also means stupid, unintelligent, slow, brainless etc. These are all offensive and derogatory in nature. Most of the members in the Deaf community have normal cognitive functions with corresponding intelligence to that of the normal hearing population.

Deaf and mute: This is another term that was used during the 18th and 19th century. “Mute” means being silent and having no voice. But this is not true. The Deaf have functional vocal cords and can produce sounds as much as a normal hearing verbal person can. It is because they cannot hear that they do not know what the words sound like. Thereby, they are unable to produce these sounds. They have the processing ability but lack the sensory input of sound as they are deaf. If given speech therapy and taught how to speak, they WILL learn to talk like anyone else.

So, what do we call them? Just “Deaf”.As simple as that.

2.    Myth: Sign Language is Universal.
Fact: Sign Language is NOT universal. What this means is that there are different sign languages used across the world. Just as there are different spoken languages like Hindi, French, English, Spanish etc. used by hearing people from different countries, the Deaf too have different sign languages in every country like British Sign Language, Auslan (Australian Sign Language), American Sign Language, Indian Sign Language etc. So, knowing the sign language in one country or region does not necessarily mean that you will be able to communicate with all the Deaf people across the world.

3.    Myth: If you know one form of sign language, it is easy to learn another.
Fact: No, the sign languages differ between countries and regions. If a hearing person knows and speaks English fluently, does it mean that he will be able to learn Spanish easily? No, because they are two completely different languages. We would need months and years of learning and communicating with people who speak that language to learn it. It is the same with sign language. Just because we know British Sign Language does not mean that we will easily be able to learn French Sign Language. It would take months and years of not just learning the vocabulary of that particular sign language, but also using it on a daily basis for a Deaf or hearing person to learn a different sign language. The hearing may so easily tell the Deaf to “learn as many sign languages as possible” as if it were that easy. This is where we need to respect the different sign languages as completely different languages. So,it is not easy to learn a new sign language.

4.    Myth: They have poor English grammar.
Fact: Sign Language has its own unique grammatical rules. Sign language is a visual language, with their script usually being English, i.e., they write in English. However, they do not follow the grammatical rules of the English language. To take a relatable example, let us consider the grammatical structures of English and Nagamese. An exact translation of the Nagamesesentence, “Apunilaganaamkiase?” into English would be “Your name what is?”. Does this mean that the Nagamese sentence is wrong? Not at all! It only shows that the grammatical rule of Nagamese is different from that of English. The same goes with sign language. They may write in English script, but they follow their own grammatical rules, which may make no sense to the hearing people. Most hearing people think that the Deaf are poor in English and use “broken” English. But in their own way, they are using the correct grammar for their language.