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Title: Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language: Hereditary Deafness on Marthas Vineyard by Nora Ellen Groce, John W. M. Whiting ISBN: 0-674-27041-X Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: April, 1988 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.75 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Acceptance of individuals who are "diferent"
Comment: An extraordinary presentation of how indidivuals with significant hearing deficits on a genetic basis were accepted and integrated into the community of Martha's Vineyard for many generations. It interesting to discover that many of the original settlers in Martha's Vineyard in colonial times had significant auditory deafness due to hereditary factors . They and their decendants many of whom were deaf became vitally important members of the community .
Rating: 5
Summary: Inspiring and interesting
Comment: This is one of my favorite books of all time. Originally written as an ethnographic study, it is also completely readable for a non-professional popular audience. Basically, it is the story of the islanders of Martha's Vineyard, a large island off the coast of Massachusetts. The islanders originally came from the same 2 or 3 boatloads of colonists from England, by way of Boston and Scituate, from a region in Kent which already seems to have had a high incidence of hereditary deafness. Due to the geographic isolation of the island, recessive genes for deafness, which were already prominent in the original Kentish colonists, came increasingly to the fore. As the proportions of islanders who happened to be deaf gradually increased, what was the islanders' answer? Not shunning the deaf. Far from it. Rather, a tradition arose that EVERYONE on the island, deaf or hearing, simply learned sign language as children!
This book is full of fascinating little anecdotes, about how island society worked to include its deaf members. For example, we learn about families and friends, some deaf and some hearing, who would regularly sit next to each other in church. The hearing members would sign the sermons to their deaf friends. Or, sometimes groups of people who could hear perfectly well might be together, for whatever reason, and they might happen to converse by signing just as much as in spoken English. Everyone spoke both languages.
Some of my favorite parts of the book focus on the benefits of signing. For example, perhaps two neighbors wanted to converse, while being separated by 200 yards of noisy space, made vocally impenetrable by sounds of surf and sea. Whether they were deaf or hearing, they could get out their spyglasses (this was a 19th century whaling community, where spyglasses were in every household) and sign to each other across the distance while viewing each other through the magnification afforded by the spyglasses. One entertaining anecdote tells of two young men, who could hear perfectly well, who would use their signing ability to pick up girls off-island. They would pique the girls' interest in them by signing amongst themselves, and would claim that one of them was deaf. After they had secured the girls' interest, they would put on a lengthy, well-practiced charade of deafness to keep the gils curious about them. Do they ever let on that they can really hear? You'll have to read the book to find out! Bwa ha ha haaaa ( that's the sound of an evil laugh).
Those are a few minor anecdotes. The whole book is packed with stories like that, and it's endlessly amazing. The last couple of chapters make excellent, general points about the human issues raised in the book, and about how we as a society think about the "handicapped" -- perhaps, as Dr. Groce points out, we should not use the term in the first place.
Anyway, I'm really pleased to call attention to this book. I wish it were more widely known. If you're reading this because you linked to my reviewer's page from my review of "Jeepers Creepers," or something at a similar level, then, well, I'm just happy you're reading about this valuable story as well as "Jeepers Creepers." Two thumbs up.
Rating: 4
Summary: An interesting look at a unique deaf cultue
Comment: "Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language" is a look at the effect of a large deaf population on Martha's Vineyard. Though a dry read at times, this book gives an interesting look at how for once in the history of deaf culture the *hearing* adapted for the deaf instead of vice versa. While most people might assume that the large deaf population would force a hefty amount of deaf people to adapt to hearing life, the opposite was actually true; the brilliance of Martha's Vineyard was that nearly all hearing people knew sign language to some degree.
The book analyses cultural impact of the large deaf population within the Vineyard's communities, which was biologically caused by the genetic predisposition for deafness. The book, largely written like an anthropological study, focuses on both physical and cultural aspect of the deafness in the communities. However, the most interesting implications within the book are those discussing deaf and hearing interrelations.
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Title: The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the Deaf Community by Harlan L. Lane ISBN: 1581210094 Publisher: Independent Publishers Group Pub. Date: March, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: When the Mind Hears : A History of the Deaf by Harlan Lane ISBN: 0679720235 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: 18 June, 1989 List Price(USD): $22.70 |
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Title: Forbidden Signs: American Culture and the Campaign Against Sign Language, 1847-1920 by Douglas C. Baynton ISBN: 0226039641 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: May, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: A Journey into the Deaf-World by Harlan L. Lane, Robert Hoffmeister, Ben Bahan, Benjamin J. Bahan ISBN: 0915035634 Publisher: Independent Publishers Group Pub. Date: May, 1996 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Train Go Sorry : Inside a Deaf World by Leah Hager Cohen ISBN: 0679761659 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 25 April, 1995 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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