Re: ideas and questions

Mark J. Reed scripsit:

> I also find it ludicrous to capitalize "deaf".  I realize that there
> is a strong sub-community of deaf individuals, but there are five
> zillion different ways that people group themselves together into
> communities, and we can't go around capitalizing all of them.
There is a distinction, however, between "Deaf" and "deaf"; indeed, they
can be used contrastively.  My father was deaf in his last years, having
been hard of hearing for much of his life, but he was in no way Deaf.
Similarly, there are people raised in Deaf households who are pretty
well integrated into Deaf culture despite being hearing.

In the town of Chilmark on Martha's Vineyard, an island off Massachusetts,
some 4% of the 19th century population were deaf, but there were no Deaf
there, for both deaf and hearing persons used spoken English and MVSL
for communication.  (MVSL influenced ASL but is now extinct.)

--
John Cowan                              jcowan@reutershealth.com
http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              http://www.reutershealth.com
Thor Heyerdahl recounts his attempt to prove Rudyard Kipling's theory
that the mongoose first came to India on a raft from Polynesia.
        --blurb for Rikki-Kon-Tiki-Tavi