Reading A man without words by Susan Schaller introduced me to the concept of languageless. This refers to a person, who is born deaf or loses their hearing shortly after birth, having absolutely no idea or concept of language, that language has something to do with words, with speaking and communicating, that words carry meaning, that words are connected to objects, actions, dreams and perspectives. Do you grasp what you just read?

Some (not all) deaf people have no concept of language, such as Ildefonso, the man without words. He was born deaf and never introduced to any language or education until Susan started working with him in his late twenties. Susan, who works as an American Sign Language interpreter, has documented the journey she and Ildefonso took to patiently and frustratingly introduce the concept of language… and succeeded. 

My brain had to make mental jumps and crinkles to get around this concept of languageless: someone communicates by observation, miming and pointing in a languageless world, meaning they do not know or understand that spoken, written or sign language exists to communicate. It is almost impossible to imagine. Perhaps, for a hearing person, it is impossible to imagine.

For Ildefonso, the shift from… watching people moving their mouths, not knowing sounds exist, watching people make scribbles on paper, not knowing these are meaningful symbols to… making a meaningful connection between sign, word and thing was more than an eye opener to me.

I have little experience with the Deaf Community. Ildefonso’s story opened a window into a world without sounds and the uniqueness of sign language. Sign language is the third official language in New Zealand. In the news yesterday a group of 27 deaf people who attended the Christchurch School for the Deaf in the sixties reunited after sixty years. Like elsewhere in the world in those days, using sign language was punished out of fear that the child would not learn to speak. “And now they all use sign language openly.”   (www.onenews.co.nz)