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Oliver Sacks turns his attention to the subject of deafness, and the results is a beautiful, moving book that not only takes readers into the unfathomable world of the deaf, but offers a dee ply felt portraits of a minority struggle for recognition and respect.
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Seeing Voices AJOURNEYINTO THE WORLD OF THE DEAF
OLIVER SACKS
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Harper Perennial A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers
A hardcover edition of this book is published by University of California Press. It is reprinted here by arrangement with University of California Press. The author gratefully acknowledges perl11i~sion to reprint material from Lunguage and the Dlscouery of Reality by Joseph Church, reprinted by permission of the author; Deaf in America by Carol Padden and Tom Humphries, reprinted by permission of Harvard University Press; and Deafness, copyright 1969 by David Wright, reprinted by permission of Stein and Day Publishers. Copyright (i) 1989, 1990 by Oliver Sacks. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022. SEEING VOICES.
First HarperPerennial edition published 1990. Designed by Helene Berinsky
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sacks, Oliver W. Seeing voices: a journey into the world of the deaf / Oliver Sacks. - 1st Harper Perennial ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-06-097347-1 (pbk.) 1. Deaf-History. 2. Sign language. 3. Gallaudet UniversityStrike, 1988. I. Title. HV2370.S23 1990 30S.9'08162-dc20
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[Sign language] is, in the hands of its masters, a most beautiful and expressive language, for which, in their intercourse with each other and as a m~ans of easily and quickly reaching the minds of the deaf, neither nature nor art has given them a satisfactory substitute. It is impossible for those who do not understand it to comprehend its possibilities with the deaf, its powerful influence on the moral and social happiness of those deprived of hearing, and its wonderful power of carrying thought to intellects which would otherwise be in perpetual darkness. Nor can they appreciate the hold it has upon the deaf. So long as there are two deaf people upon the face of the earth and they get together, so long will signs be in use.
-J.
Schuyler Long Head teacher, Iowa School for the Deaf The Sign Language (1910)
CONTENTS
Preface Xl
One 1 Two
37 Three
127 References 164 Selected Bibliography
173 Index
179
Strobe photograph of ASL signs "join" and "inform." (Reprinted by permission from The Signs of Language, E. S. Klima & U. Bellugi. Harvard University Press, 1979.) .
PREFACE
T
hree years ago I knew nothing of the situation of the deaf, and never imagined that it could cast light on so many realms, above all, on the realm of language. I was astonished to learn about the history of deaf people, and the extraordinary (linguistic) challenges they face, astonished too to learn of a completely visual language, Sign, a language different in mode from my own language, Speech. It is all too easy to take language, one's own language, for gr4nted-one may need to encounter another language, or rather another mode of language, in order to be astonished, to be pushed into wonder, again. When I first read of the deaf and their singular mode of language, Sign, I was incite