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Sign Language: The Universal Language We Never Had
In a world dominated by spoken language, I intuitively thought that there is one single sign language. Then, I realized I couldn’t be more wrong.
We use gestures all the time, and it is a part of our daily communication even though we are not even aware of it. Still, it is just a matter of natural interaction, and we never even learn how to use our bodies to communicate with other people.
One would naturally think that there would only be one sign language since our body mainly expresses it, but most countries and even some villages and remote schools have their own sign languages.
Speaking one universal sign language would have incredible consequences, including having the ability to communicate with anyone in the world, skipping the differences.
I think it would make us closer and focus on our similarities rather than differences.
I want to take you on a short trip of sign language starting from its history and how it evolved to be only used by people who have hearing disabilities.
History
One of the earliest written records of a sign language is from the fifth century BC, in Plato’s Cratylus, where Socrates says:
“If we hadn’t a voice or a tongue, and wanted to express things to one another, wouldn’t we try to make signs by moving our hands, head, and the rest of our body, just as dumb people do at present?”
Fast forward to the 17th century; some people think that Juan Pablo de Bonet invented sign language. In the year 1620, Bonet wrote a book that contained the first known manual alphabet system. The handshapes in this system represented different speech sounds. This is a great accomplishment, but he created the first known manual alphabet system, not the first manual alphabet.
