Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!bunker!wtm
From: ceduke@lotus.uwaterloo.ca (Carolyn Duke)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Sign Languages
Message-ID: <17980@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 7 Mar 91 05:10:06 GMT
References: <17824@bunker.UUCP>
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Reply-To: ceduke@lotus.uwaterloo.ca (Carolyn Duke)
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Organization: University of Waterloo
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Approved: wtm@bunker.UUCP
Fidonet: Silent Talk Conference

Index Number: 13827

In article <17824@bunker.UUCP> James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org writes:
>Index Number: 13697
>
>Moreover,
>a truly deaf person never really masters English on thelevel a hearing
>person does it he or she is born deaf or deaf froma very early age.
>The reason is that English is a phonetic language. The deaf person
>(God, how many times will I say this?) cannot hear it. You can speak
>it, signit, write it, lipread it all you want and you are simply not
>ve
>going to infuse the level of mastery a native or hearing speaker achieves
>with English by virtue of deafness itself.

I have been profoundly deaf since birth.  I can communicate excellently in
spoken and written English.  I was a top student in regular high school
and I now attend one of the top regular universities in Canada.  If my parents
had not been committed to teaching me to live in the real world, which is
English, the best I could hope for would be a life in institutions
performing menial jobs.  Instead of studying for a Bachelor of Mathematics
degree, hopefully to be followed by a Master of Math degree, I would be
unable to perform long division.  In summary, it would have been a tragic
waste if I had not learned to communicate in English.
------
ceduke