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DEAF AND DUMB

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Originally appearing in Volume V07, Page 881 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.

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DEAF

DEAF AND DUMB .' The See also:

TERM

term " deaf " is frequently applied to those who are deficient in See also:

HEARING (formed from the verb " to hear," O. Eng. hyran, heron, &c., a common Teutonic verb; cf. Ger. Koren, Dutch hooren, &c.; the O. Tent. form is seen in Goth. hausjan; the initial h makes any connexion with " ear," Lat. audire, or Gr. &Kobew very doub

hearing See also:

POWER [WILLIAM GRATTAN] TYRONE (1797-1841)

power in any degree, how-ever slight, as well as to See also:

PEOPLE

people who are unable to detect the loudest sounds by means of the auditory See also:

ORGANS

organs. It is impossible to draw a hard and fast See also:

LINE

line between the deaf and the hearing at any particular point. For the purposes of this See also:

ARTICLE (from Lat. articulus, a joint)

article, however, that See also:

DENOTATION (from Lat. denotare, to mark out, specify)

denotation which is generally accepted by educators of the deaf may be given to the term. This makes it refer to those who are so far handicaed as to be incapable of instruction by the See also:

ORDINARY (med. Lat. ordinarius, Fr. ordinaire)

ordinary means of Wie See also:

EAR (common Teut.; O.E. are, Ger. Ohr, Du. oor, akin to Lat. auris, Gr. ovs)

ear in a class of those possessing normal hearing. Paradoxical though it may seem, it is yet true to say that " dumbness " in our sense of the word does not, strictly speaking, exist, though the term " dumb " may, for all See also:

PRACTICAL

practical purposes, fairly be applied to many of the deaf even after they are supposed to have learnt how to speak. Oral teachers now confess that it is not See also:

worth while to try to See also:

TEACH [THATCH OR THACH], EDWARD (d. 1718)

teach more than a large percentage of the deaf to speak at all. We are not concerned with aphasia, See also:

STAMMERING, or STUTTERING

stammering or such inability to articulate as may be due to malformation of the vocal organs. In the See also:

case of the deaf and dumb, as these words are generally understood, dumbness is merely the result of See also:

IGNORANCE (Lat. ignorantia, from ignorare, not to know); want of knowledge, a state of mind which in law has important consequences. A well-known legal maxim runs: ignorantia juris non excusat ("ignorance of the law does not excuse")

ignorance in the use of the See also:

VOICE (Fr. voix, from Lat. vox)

voice, this ignorance being due to the deafness. The vocal organs are perfect. The deaf See also:

man can laugh, shout, and in fact utter any and every See also:

sound that the normal See also:

PERSON, OFFENCES AGAINST THE

person can. But he does not speak See also:

ENGLISH

English (if that happens to be his See also:

NATIONALITY

nationality) for the same See also:

REASON (Lat. ratio, through French raison)

reason that a See also:

French See also:

child does not, which is that he has never heard it. There is in fact no more a priori reason why an English 1 The two words are See also:

COMMON

common to See also:

Teutonic See also:

LANGUAGES

languages, cf.

Ger. taub and dumm (only in the sense of " stupid "), Dutch doof and dom; the See also:

ORIGINAL

original meaning seems to have been dull of See also:

PERCEPTION (from Lat. percipere, to perceive)

perception, stupid, obtuse, and the words may be ultimately related. The Gr. rv4Xds See also:

BLIND, MATHILDE (1841—1896)

blind, and ru¢os, See also:

SMOKE (from O. Eng. smeocan, to smoke, reek, cf. Dutch meek, Ger. Schmauch, probably allied to Gr. vol9caiv)

smoke, mist, probably show the same See also:

BASE

base.baby, See also:

BORN, IGNAZ, EDLER VON (1742–1791)

born in See also:

England, should talk English than that it should talk any other See also:

LANGUAGE (adapted from the Fr. langage, from langue, tongue, Lat. lingua)

language. English may be correctly described as its " See also:

MOTHER

mother See also:

TONGUE (O. Eng. lunge)

tongue," but not its natural language; the only reason why one person speaks English and another See also:

RUSSIAN

Russian is that each imitated that particular language which he heard in See also:

INFANCY

infancy. This, See also:

IMITATION (Lat. imitatio, from intitari, to imitate)

imitation depends upon the ability to hear. Hence if one has never heard, or has lost hearing in See also:

early child-See also:

hood, he has never been able to imitate that language which his parents and others used, and the See also:

CONDITION (Lat. condicio, from condicere, to agree upon, arrange; not connected with conditio, from condere, conditum, to put together)

condition of so-called dumbness is added to his deafness. From this it follows that if the sense of hearing be not lost till the child has learnt to speak fluently, the ability to speak is unaffected by the calamity of deafness, except that after many years the voice is likely to become high-pitched, or too guttural, or See also:

PECULIAR

peculiar in some other respect, owing to the See also:

ABSENCE (Lat. absentia)

absence of the See also:

CONTROL (Fr. contrdle, older form contre rolle, from Med. Lat. contra-rotulus, a counter roll or copy of a document used to check the original; there is no instance in English of the use of " control " in this, its literal, meaning)

control usually exercised by the ear. It also follows that, to a certain extent, the See also:

art of speech can be taught the deaf person even though he were born deaf. Theoretically, he is capable of talking just as well as his hearing See also:

BROTHER

brother; for the organs of speech are as perfect in one as in the other, except that they suffer from lack of exercise in the case of the deaf man. Practically, he can never speak perfectly, for even if he were made to See also:

ATTEMPT (Lat. adtemptare, attentare, to try)

attempt See also:

ARTICULATION (from Lat. articulare, to divide into joints)

articulation as soon as he is discovered to be deaf, the fact that the ear, the natural See also:

GUIDE (in Mid. Eng. gyde, from the Fr. guide; the earlier French form was guie, English " guy," the d was due to the Italian form guida; the ultimate origin is probably Teutonic, the word being connected with the base seen in O. Eng. witan, to know)

guide of the voice, is useless, See also:

LAYS

lays upon him a See also:

HANDICAP

handicap which can never be wiped out. He can never hear the See also:

TONE, THEOBALD WOLFE (1763-1798)

tone of his teacher's voice nor of his own; he can only see small and, in many instances, scarcely discernible movements of the lips, tongue, See also:

NOSE (O.Eng. nosu, cf. Dutch neus, Swed. nos, snout; the Aix in Provence. Both at Aix and at Lyons he acquired great connexion with O.Eng. nasu is obscure, cf. Ger. Nase, Lat. pares, distinction by his labours during outbreaks of the plague. In nostrils,

nose, cheeks and See also:

THROAT (O. Eng. protu, prote or }Prota, possibly from preotan, to press, whence threat, or, with loss of initial s, connected with strut, to swell)

throat in those who are endeavouring to teach him to speak, and he can never See also:

hope to succeed in speech through the instrumentality of such unsatisfactory appeals to his See also:

eye as perfectly as the hearing child can with the ideal See also:

ADAPTATION (from Lat. adaptare. to fit to)

adaptation of the voice to the ear. Sound appeals to the ear, not the eye, and those who have to rely upon the latter to imitate speech must suffer by comparison. Deafness then, in our sense, means the incapacity to be instructed by means of the ear in the normal way, and dumbness means only that ignorance of how to speak one's mother tongue which is the effect of the deafness.

Of such deaf people many can hear sound to some extent. Dr Kerr Love quotes several authorities (Deaf Mutism, pp. 58 ff.) to show that 50 or 6o% are absolutely deaf, while 25 % can detect loud sounds such as shouting See also:

close to the ear, and the See also:

REST (O. Eng. rest, reste, bed, cognate with other Teutonic forms, e.g. Ger. Rast, Riiste, rest, and probably Gothic Rasta, league, i.e. resting or stopping place)

rest can distinguish vowels or even words. He himself thinks that not more than 15 or 20% are totally deaf—sometimes only 7 or 8%; that ability to hear speech exists in about one in four, while ten or fifteen in each See also:

HUNDRED

hundred are only semi-deaf. He rightly warns against the use of tuning forks or other See also:

INSTRUMENTS

instruments held on the bones of the See also:

head as tests of hearing, because the vibration which is See also:

FELT (cognate with Ger. Filz, Du. vilt, Swed. and Dan. fill; the root is unknown; the word has given Med. Lat. filtrum, " filter ")

felt, not heard, may very often be mistaken for sound. Dr See also:

EDWARD

Edward M. See also:

GALLAUDET, THOMAS HOPKINS (1787–1851)

Gallaudet, See also:

PRESIDENT (Fr. president, from Lat. praesidens, post-Augustan Lat. for praeses, director, ruler, from praesidere, to sit in front of, preside)

president of the See also:

COLUMBIA

Columbia Institution for the Deaf in See also:

Washington, D.C., suggests the following terms for use in dividing the whole class of the deaf into its See also:

main sections, though it is obviously impossible to split them up into perfectly defined subdivisions, where, as a See also:

MATTER

matter of fact, you have each degree of deafness and dumbness shading into the next:—the speaking deaf, the semi-speaking deaf, the See also:

MUTE (Lat. tnutus, dumb)

mute deaf (or deaf-mute), the speaking semi-deaf, the mute semi-deaf, the hearing mute and the hearing semi-mute. He points out that the last two classes are usually persons of feeble See also:

MENTAL

mental power. We should exclude these altogether from the See also:

list, since their hearing is, presumably, perfect; and should add the semi-speaking semi-deaf before the mute semi-deaf. This would give two main divisions—those who cannot hear at all, and those who have partial hearing—with three subsections in each main division—those who speak, those who have partial speech and those who do not speak at all. Where the hearing is perfect it is paradoxical to class a person with the deaf, and the dumbness in such a case is due (where there is no malformation of the vocal organs) to inability of the mind to pay See also:

ATTENTION (from Lat. ad-tendo, await, expect; the condition of being " stretched " or " tense ")

attention to, and imitate, what the ear really hears. In such cases this mental weakness is generally shown in other ways besides that of not hearing sounds.

Probably no sign will be given of recognizing persons or See also:

OBJECTS

objects around; there will be in 'fact, a See also:

general incapacity of the whole See also:

BODY

body and senses. It is incorrect to designate such persons as deaf and feeble-minded or deaf and idiotic, because in many cases their organs of hearing are as perfect as are other organs of their body, and they are no more•deaf than blind, though they may pay no attention to what they hear any more than to what they see. They are simply weak in See also:

INTELLECT (Lat. intellectus, from intelligere, to understand)

intellect, and this is shown by the disuse of any and all of their senses; hence it is incorrect to classify them ' according to one, and one only, of the evidences of this mental weakness. Extent of Deafness.—The following table shows the number of deaf and dumb persons in the See also:

UNITED

United See also:

KINGDOM

Kingdom at successive censuses: NUMBER OF DEAF AND DUMB PERSONS.

End of Article: DEAF AND DUMB

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