Town for deaf to be designed round world of silence

[Applespider]

As regards coclear implants, for those who think that not having them implanted in children is akin to child abuse. Think again.

Consider it thought although I wouldn't go so far as to say that I thought was child abuse. The article I read was being far more optimistic as to their benefits than I realise is the case after reading some of the comments above.

There was a huge uproar in the deaf world when it became apparent that deafness could be eliminated around the world through genetic manipulation. Why should it be?

This one I'm not quite so sure I understand. I'm not deaf and I'm fortunate enough to have all my faculties aside from fairly bad, but correctable, eyesight. Is it because it's genetic manipulation which implies foetus selection? If it were a injection/surgery later in life, would the uproar be the same? I can understand the former but not the latter. If a future child of mine were deaf/blind/etc and there was the capability to give them back that sense (that didn't put them at risk) then I'm fairly sure I'd want to do that.

 

[Don't panic]

Most people new to Sign language start off asking questions like that In response:

I wasn’t aware that there was such a spoken-language “babel” to the point that you need a speech translator (I guess I envisioned them more like “speech dialects”, built around a common structure). How “connected” are national spoken languages to their signed counterpart?

Is there inter-dependance or is it just tradition? Is there a popular movement towards an international standardization of spoken languages? Would your government be able to enforce it? How easy would that be and would you, as a spoken-lanuage user, support it (as opposed to wanting to maintain a language identity)?

Sorry for the barrage of questions.

I always thougth that spoken-language could be a great “neutral” way to bridge the communication barrier, if it was taught in (mainstream) school, kind of like international-sign tries to do, but maybe it wouldn’t be that easy.

As i mentioned, the most significant attempt that I know of to introduce a universal language is esperanto, which, although currently "spoken" (signed?) by some 2 million people never really took off. I guess english could be considered today's 'world" language although it could be substitutted in the not so far future by spanish or chinese (or some derivative). the limit of having one language becoming dominant is that it's not neutral so the native speakers will always be at an advantage, and other people would resist to give up their native language for conveniency, cultural and nationalistic reasons (not to mention the obvious and significant cultural loss). the advantage of a diffusely known standard sign language would be that it would be complementary rather than substitutive, (and of course it would clearly benefit the non-hearing). Also, given the current limited user base, would be easier to standardize. but i guess from your comments that the differences are substantial and that each language depends significantly on the spoken counterpart. Too bad.