History of Sign Language - Development of Sign Language

Development of Sign Language

Sign Languages have existed since deaf people have been around. Universally, where there are deaf communities, sign languages can also be found.

The written history of sign language began in the 17th century in Spain. In 1620, Juan Pablo Bonet published Reducción de las letras y arte para enseñar a hablar a los mudos (‘Reduction of letters and art for teaching mute people to speak’) in Madrid. It is considered the first modern treaty of phonetics and speech therapy, setting out a method of oral education for deaf children by means of the use of manual signs, in the form of a manual alphabet to improve communication among and with deafies.

From Bonet's Alphabet, deaf children at Charles-Michel de l'Épée's school has adopted and adapted into what is now the French manual alphabet. The French manual alphabet was published in the 18th century, which has arrived basically unchanged until the present time.

Standardized sign languages have been used in Spain and Italy since the 17th century and in France since the 18th century in Deaf education. Old French Sign Language was used in Paris' deaf community, long before l’Abbé Charles Michel de l’Épée came and started his deaf school. However de l'Epee has learned the language from deafies there and introduced Signed French to his school, using the signs learned and adapted. These languages were always modeled after the natural sign languages already in use by the deaf cultures in their area of origin, often with additions to show aspects of the grammar of the local oral languages.

In 1755, Abbé de l'Épée founded the first public school for deaf children in Paris. His lessons were based upon his observations of deaf people signing with hands in the streets of Paris. Synthesized with French grammar, it evolved into the French Sign Language. Laurent Clerc, a graduate and former teacher in Paris, went to the United States with Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet to found American School for the Deaf at Hartford.

The 18th permanent school for the deaf was established in Hartford, Connecticut; others followed. In 1817, Clerc and Gallaudet founded the American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb (now the American School for the Deaf). In 1864, a college for deaf people was founded in Washington D.C. Its enabling act was signed by Abraham Lincoln and was named “The National Deaf-Mute College” (later "Gallaudet College" (1894), and then renamed "Gallaudet University") in 1986.