Reddit reviews Seeing Voices

The biggest thing to realize is that sign language is not lesser than any other language. There is syntax, grammar, and metaphor, but these things all make use of space. Having a full formed and featured language has an enormous impact on deaf culture. For example, the deaf community refused to let deafness be labeled as a disability, thus all the laws in the US related to the Americans With Disabilities Act do not apply. This is why you see wheel chair ramps, braille on ATMs, and chirpers on traffic lights, but no services to help the deaf.

If you are interested in more science and stories about this, I would highly recommend checking out "Seeing Voices" by Oliver Sacks. He also produced an hour long TV special called The Mind Traveler - "The Ragin Cajun" about deaf culture, but I can't find it anywhere on the internet.

I'm currently reading Seeing Voices by Oliver Sacks, which is an incredibly interesting read for anyone interested in questions like this.

From what I understand, some deaf people think in pictures, others think in Sign. What really interests me are the people who never learn ASL or any other form of language until later in life. It's wildly difficult for someone to learn to think abstractly, even using Sign, if they don't learn some type of language (ASL or otherwise) when they're very young. Direct quote from the book (because I literally read it this afternoon on the train):

> "Joseph (an eleven year-old learning Sign for the first time) was unable, for example, to communicate how he spent the weekend- one could not really ask him, even in Sign: he could not even grasp the idea of a question, much less formulate an answer... There was a strange lack of historical sense... the feeling of a life that only existed in the moment, in the present.

The emphasis is mine. But I don't know how I could even begin to explain what a question was to someone who could only understand the relation between physical objects. The author goes on to say that Joseph was NOT unintelligent (quite the opposite), but because he never had a language, he was never taught how to use his mind fully.

Many people who go deaf after being exposed to language (say, after age 4) actually "hear" phantasmal voices when they see a person's lips moving. They're really lip-reading, but it's like they can hear what the person's saying in their head because they understand what words sound like.

Can recommend the book "Seeing Voices" by Oliver Sacks to anyone curious about ASL and what it does to a human mind. Reading it makes me wish I was deaf at times so I could experienced the world in this way.

Obviously I am glad I can hear and don't have to face some of those struggles, but being both fluid in a spoken language and a sign language makes your brain a better brain than those who are fluid in just one of the two.

http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Voices-Oliver-Sacks/dp/0375704078

Anyone interested in this topic would enjoy Oliver Sacks' book, Seeing Voices.