NET RESULTS:OVER THE summer my cousin married someone who communicates in a different language and comes from a different culture.
Many of us have been to such a cross-cultural wedding. I hardly knew a word of the language but, after spending four days with the wedding party, I was delighted to have picked up a few expressions. And we all had a great time despite the communication barrier.
My cousin, on the other hand, has the special perspective of bridging both cultures and both languages. She grew up with a sister who is fluent in the other language, and has made a career as a translator. She’s a deaf interpreter. And her sister, her partner, and a huge number of their friends are either deaf or are hearing people who, due to family circumstances, work or personal passion, speak ASL – American Sign Language.
The wedding drove home to me that most of us in the hearing community are pretty ignorant of the perspectives of people who are deaf, even people who we may know well, who are part of our families or our workplaces.
To start with, we hearing folk almost always view deafness is an impairment. Deaf people generally don’t – being deaf defines them, their language and a unique deaf culture just as someone Irish has a unique sense of culture involving ways of communicating, a specific history and forms of social interaction.
We tend to think sign language is about using a signed alphabet. Wrong. Watch a group of deaf people in full flow, and you will see that sign language is a fascinating blend of some spelled words but mostly, signed words and actions, even whole concepts.
Sentences are put together differently, too, without many elements used in spoken language. Sign language has a grammar, syntax and sensibility all its own. It incorporates facial and bodily expression – which makes it amazingly expressive as well as physical. It’s also beautiful – hands moving swiftly through dips and twirls, twists and arcs, fingers fluttering, gliding, and undulating.
Interestingly, ASL is closer to African sign languages than it is to British Sign Language.
Irish Sign Language is unique and, according to the Irish Deaf Youth Association ( irishdeafyouth.com), is closer to ASL and French Sign Language then to BSL.
ISL, though the main language for about 5,000 people here and part-used by many multiples more, still does not have Government recognition.
That’s ironic in a State that has its own long history of language suppression. The parallels, going back over a couple of hundred years, are eerily familiar. Internationally, sign-language users were often punished for signing. Deaf people here are still pushed to focus on learning to speak – to prioritise the language of the dominant community.
Yet this is a community with its own rich sense of self and unique forms of communication; its own identity, politics, issues and disagreements. This truth is apparent if you spend any time around deaf people. The wedding proved a marvellous opportunity for some cross-cultural learning.
I was especially interested in how new technologies have changed the lives of deaf people and made it far easier to communicate among themselves and with hearing people. Instead of tethered devices on home landlines, communications now can be cheap, fast and mobile, using video calls, emails and texting.
If you’re interested in learning more about sign language (and you might be if you are expecting a baby, as research indicates hearing babies who learn basic signing end up about a year ahead cognitively), the internet and a range of apps make this incredibly easy.
Websites for Irish deaf organisations all have charts for the ISL hand alphabet. Many organisations as well as universities offer classes in ISL around the State. The Irish Deaf Society ( irishdeafsociety.ie) also offers awareness workshops for businesses.
There’s a simple iPhone app that includes a self-testing approach to the ISL alphabet. There’s a more elaborate, award-winning app for android devices (coming for iPhone, they say) developed by four Limerick students that includes video and introduces both alphabet and basic ISL (search for “Irish sign language app”). If you do the same on YouTube, you’ll find videos teaching the alphabet and basic, useful ISL. Try a few. Learning some sign is a lot of fun, and will give new perspective into a vibrant community too often invisible to, and ignored by, the hearing community.
