I just watched a movie in which the lead female part portrayed a young woman who was deaf and mute. She communicated by writing and sign language and "heard" by lip reading. My admiration for people who overcome physical challenges is boundless. So many people who are paralyzed or are amputees have achieved things that most of us would not even attempt. Amazingly, most have retained a sense of humor through it all.
At the risk of being accused of insensitivity, I want to share some of the thoughts I had while watching this movie. In a previous blog I pointed out that when shaking hands with older people with arthritis. we should take care not to squeeze their hand too tightly. It occurs to me now that one of these victims of arthritis may have difficulty signing and I wondered if there were a possibility that a distorted finger or two might change the meaning of the sign, just as we might use a word in another language, while similar to the word desired but meaning something different, even "naughty". If you were a little tipsy, would your "speech" be slurred? Would it be possible to stutter or repeat yourself? Can illiterates sign?
It also occurred to me that signing in a foreign language would present some problems. Cantonese might take several dozen fingers on each hand to represent the countless characters used in the language. The suave Frenchman would lose his charm without the accent. The Italians and Spanish speakers would lose the trilling of the "r". Would an Italian signing in English "speak" broken English?
The main thing is that a means exists to overcome the problem. For the lip reader, the eyes become the ears: for the signers, the hands become their voices. I applaud all who have overcome these challenges and as always, wonder if I could do it.
At the risk of being accused of insensitivity, I want to share some of the thoughts I had while watching this movie. In a previous blog I pointed out that when shaking hands with older people with arthritis. we should take care not to squeeze their hand too tightly. It occurs to me now that one of these victims of arthritis may have difficulty signing and I wondered if there were a possibility that a distorted finger or two might change the meaning of the sign, just as we might use a word in another language, while similar to the word desired but meaning something different, even "naughty". If you were a little tipsy, would your "speech" be slurred? Would it be possible to stutter or repeat yourself? Can illiterates sign?
It also occurred to me that signing in a foreign language would present some problems. Cantonese might take several dozen fingers on each hand to represent the countless characters used in the language. The suave Frenchman would lose his charm without the accent. The Italians and Spanish speakers would lose the trilling of the "r". Would an Italian signing in English "speak" broken English?
The main thing is that a means exists to overcome the problem. For the lip reader, the eyes become the ears: for the signers, the hands become their voices. I applaud all who have overcome these challenges and as always, wonder if I could do it.
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