OntheDisconstructionof(Sign)LanguageintheWesternTradition.docVIP

On the Disconstruction of (Sign) Language in the Western Tradition: A Deaf Reading of Plato’s Cratylus  H-Dirksen L. Bauman  In the study of humanity there is a maine deficiencie, one Province not to have been visited, and that is Gesture. John Bulwer, Chirologia, 1644. Answer me this: If we hadn’t a voice or a tongue, and wanted to express things to one another, wouldn’t we try to make signs by moving our hands, head, and the rest of our body, just as dumb people do at present? Socrates, in Plato’s Cratylus  Introduction We cannot help but wonder what were those deaf Greeks talking about. Were they, like the 18th century Parisian Deaf community described by Pierre Desloges, discussing matters of personal, political, and philosophical import? Were they retelling scenes from the recent play by Sophocles or Aeschylus, gleaning what they could from the dramatic gestures of the actors? Or were they were wondering what that old man, Socrates, was always talking about. What about the language that brought these signers together—what was their particular Athenian brand of sign language like? While this may seem like amusing speculation, such musing about the existence of a deaf signing community in fifth-century B.C. is buttressed by what we now know about sign languages and their communities. We now know that human language is not dependent upon the single modality of speech, but instead may manifest in other modes, especially through a visual channel. It is not too much to imagine that in such centers of Western civilization as Athens, Rome, Constantinople, and later, Paris that deaf people would have found each other and, in so doing, would have coaxed language to take on its manual modality. We also know that signing communities have evolved throughout the world as a result of a group’s genetic propensity for deafness. Sightings of such communities have occurred in Martha’s Vineyard; Henniker, New Hampshire; Yucatan Peninsula; Bali; and among a Bedouin t