The Interesting Thing about Deaf People...

The other day as I loitered around the meat section at the local supermarket searching for a specific cut of chicken that my wife so desperately wanted, I saw a group of three deaf people huddled in deep discussion, possibly signing over the same conundrum I had found myself in. Using my vast powers of intellect, I assumed they were a family: older man with a bit of a metabolic-syndrome gut, and older woman who looked fed up with that gut, and a young woman who seemed to mediate between the two other meat seekers. I wanted to stare, investigate their signing - kind of a visual eavesdropping. But that never works in any situation, actually. You could get arrested for stalking if you kept it up for any decent length of time.

Just as this unquenchable curiosity was taking control of my better social skills, I paused to reflect on why exactly I was so interested in these people. Yes, they are signing to each other, expressing their hopes and desires with their hands instead of their mouths. But those hopes and desires are not about the true meaning of life or the secret to curing cancer - they're talking about MEAT! Still, we - "we" here meaning "me" - want to gawk and point because they are talking about meat in a way that hearing people don't. I am sure that the little Japanese kids eavesdrop on my wife and I when we are at the supermarket discussing the same supper-related matters.

I've been reading Pinker's book The Language Instinct and have had the chance to reform opinions regarding humanity's use of language. For example, despite the "atrocities" of Black English Vernacular, it is a fully functioning and fully grammatical form of English. The sentences "He working" and "He be working", though incorrect when compared to Standard American English and seemingly express the same idea, actually refer to two completely different concepts about work, and they are referred in this way consistently.

Moving back to deaf people, they too have a language with a fully functioning grammar and rich vocabulary, capable of expressing any ole idea that might come into the signer's head. If non-hearing people learn sign language from an early age it is easily acquired, though if they can't have access to it until they are older their acquisition of the language is very limited. In short, the mental processes that manage language (a kind of grammar or device, if you will) inside a deaf person's head treats sign language just like any other language. There are rules and categories of words like nouns, verbs, and objects, and all of these are used consistently.

Interesting?

Well, it is and it isn't. Reminds me of a Steve Martin bit about his trip to France: Boy those French! They have a different word for everything! Uh, yeah they do. And while that might be the most fascinating realization for a moment, really it's just normal. And that's what happened to me when I saw those deaf people signing by the meat section: I was in awe of their use of their hands to use language but they were just doing what nearly any normally functioning human being can do. They were using language.

In terms of language, deaf people signing about meat are no more interesting that hearing people talking about meat. No, deaf people are not interesting, and that interests me.