Seeing Voices Read online

  BOOKS BY OLIVER SACKS

  Oaxaca Journal

  Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood

  The Island of the Colorblind

  An Anthropologist on Mars

  Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf

  The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

  A Leg to Stand On

  Awakenings

  Migraine

  First Vintage Books Edition, November 2000

  Copyright © 1989, 1990 by Oliver Sacks

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover by the University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, in 1989.

  Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  The author gratefully acknowledges permission to reprint material from Language and the Discovery of Reality by Joseph Church, reprinted by permission of the author; Deaf in America by Carol Padden and Tom Humphries, reprinted by permission of Harvard University Press; and Deafness, copyright 1969 by David Wright, reprinted by permission of the Stein and Day Publishers.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Sacks, Oliver W.

  Seeing Voices: a journey into the world of the deaf / Oliver Sacks.

  1st Vintage Books ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-36575-0

  1. Gallaudet University—Student strike, 1988.

  2. Deaf—History. 3. American sign language.

  HV2370.S23 2000

  305.9′08162—dc21

  00-042340

  www.vintagebooks.com

  v3.1

  For

  Isabelle Rapin,

  Bob Johnson,

  Bob Silvers,

  and Kate Edgar

  [Sign language] is, in the hands of its masters, a most beautiful and expressive language, for which, in their intercourse with each other and as a means of easily and quickly reaching the minds of the deaf, neither nature nor art has given them a satisfactory substitute.

  It is impossible for those who do not understand it to comprehend its possibilities with the deaf, its powerful influence on the moral and social happiness of those deprived of hearing, and its wonderful power of carrying thought to intellects which would otherwise be in perpetual darkness. Nor can they appreciate the hold it has upon the deaf. So long as there are two deaf people upon the face of the earth and they get together, so long will signs be in use.

  —J. Schuyler Long

  Head teacher, Iowa School for the Deaf

  The Sign Language (1910)

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Preface

  A Deaf World

  Thinking in Sign

  The Revolution of the Deaf

  Notes

  References

  Selected Bibliography

  Strobe photograph of ASL signs “join” and “inform.” (Reprinted by permission from The Signs of Language, E. S. Klima & U. Bellugi. Harvard University Press, 1979.)

  PREFACE

  THREE years ago I knew nothing of the situation of the deaf, and never imagined that it could cast light on so many realms, above all, on the realm of language. I was astonished to learn about the history of deaf people, and the extraordinary (linguistic) challenges they face, astonished too to learn of a completely visual language, Sign, a language different in mode from my own language, Speech.1 It is all too easy to take language, one’s own language, for granted—one may need to encounter another language, or rather another mode of language, in order to be astonished, to be pushed into wonder, again.

  When I first read of the deaf and their singular mode of language, Sign, I was incited to embark on an exploration, a journey. This journey took me to deaf people and their families; to schools for the deaf, and to Gallaudet, the unique university of the deaf; it took me to Martha’s Vineyard, where there used to exist a hereditary deafness and where everybody (hearing no less than deaf) spoke Sign; it took me to towns like Fremont and Rochester, where there is a remarkable interface of deaf and hearing communities; it took me to the great researchers on Sign, and the conditions of the deaf—brilliant and dedicated researchers who communicated to me their excitement, theirsense of unexplored regions and new frontiers. My journey has taken me to look at language, at the nature of talking and teaching, at child development, at the development and functioning of the nervous system, at the formation of communities, worlds, and cultures, in a way which was wholly new to me, and which has been an education and a delight. It has, above all, afforded a completely new perspective on age-old problems, a new and unexpected view onto language, biology, and culture … it has made the familiar strange, and the strange familiar.

  My travels left me both enthralled and appalled. I was appalled as I discovered how many of the deaf never acquire the powers of good language—or thinking—and how poor a life might lie in store for them.

  But almost at once I was to be made aware of another dimension, another world of considerations, not biological, but cultural. Many of the deaf people I met had not merely acquired good language, but language of an entirely different sort, a language that served not only the powers of thought (and indeed allowed thought and perception of a kind not wholly imaginable by the hearing), but served as the medium of a rich community and culture. Whilst I never forgot the “medical” status of the deaf, I had now to see them in a new, “ethnic” light, as a people, with a distinctive language, sensibility, and culture of their own.2

  It might be thought that the story and study of deaf people, and their language, is something of extremely limited interest. But this, I believe, is by no means the case. It is true that the congenitally deaf only constitute about 0.1 percent of the population, but the considerations that arise from them raise issues of the widest and deepest importance. The study of the deaf shows us that much of what is distinctively human in us—ourcapacities for language, for thought, for communication, and culture—do not develop automatically in us, are not just biological functions, but are, equally, social and historical in origin; that they are a gift—the most wonderful of gifts—from one generation to another. We see that Culture is as crucial as Nature.

  The existence of a visual language, Sign, and of the striking enhancements of perception and visual intelligence that go with its acquisition, shows us that the brain is rich in potentials we would scarcely have guessed of, shows us the almost unlimited plasticity and resource of the nervous system, the human organism, when it is faced with the new and must adapt. If this subject shows us the vulnerabilities, the ways in which (often unwittingly) we may harm ourselves, it shows us, equally, our unknown and unexpected strengths, the infinite resources for survival and transcendence which Nature and Culture, together, have given us. Thus, although I hope that deaf people, and their families, teachers, and friends, may find this book of special interest, I hope that the general reader may turn to it, too, for an unexpected perspective on the human condition.

  THIS book is in three parts. The first, “A Deaf World,” was written in 1985 and 1986, and started as a review of a book on the history of the deaf, Harlan Lane’s When the Mind Hears. This had expanded to an essay by the time it was published (in the New York Review of Books, March 27, 1986), and has since been further enlarged and revised. I have, however, left certain formulations and locutions, with which I no longer fully agree, in place, because I felt I should preserve the original,
whatever its defects, as reflecting the way I first thought about the subject. Part III, “The Revolution of the Deaf,” was stimulated by the revolt of the students at Gallaudet in March 1988, and waspublished in the New York Review of Books on June 2, 1988. This too has been considerably revised and enlarged for the present book. Part II, “Thinking in Sign,” was written last, in the fall of 1988, but is, in some ways, the heart of the book—at least the most systematic, but also the most personal, view of the whole subject. I should add that I have never found it possible to tell a story, or pursue a line of thought, without taking innumerable side trips or excursions along the way, and finding my journey the richer for this.3

  I am, I should emphasize, an outsider in this field—I am not deaf, I do not sign, I am not an interpreter or teacher, I am not an expert on child development, and I am neither a historian nor a linguist. This is, as will be apparent, a charged (at times embattled) area, where passionate opinions have contended for centuries. I am an outsider, with no special knowledge or expertise, but also, I think, with no prejudices, no ax to grind, no animus in the matter.

  I could not have made my journey, let alone written about it, without the aid and inspiration of innumerable others: first and foremost deaf people—patients, subjects, collaborators, friends—the only people who can give one an inside perspective; and those most directly concerned with them, their families, interpreters, and teachers. In particular I must acknowledge here the great help of Sarah Elizabeth and Sam Lewis, and their daughter Charlotte; Deborah Tannen of Georgetown University; and the staffs at the California School for the Deaf at Fremont, the Lexington School for the Deaf, and many other schools and institutions for the deaf, most especially Gallaudet University—including David de Lorenzo, Carol Erting, Michael Karchmer, Scott Liddell, Jane Norman, John Van Cleve, Bruce White, and James Woodward, among many others.

  I owe a central debt to those researchers who have made it their lifelong concern to understand and study the deaf and their language—in particular, Ursula Bellugi, Susan Schaller, Hilde Schlesinger, and William Stokoe, who have shared their thoughts and observations fully and generously with me, and stimulated my own. Jerome Bruner, who has thought so profoundly about the mental and language development of children, has been an invaluable friend and guide throughout. My friend and colleague Elkhonon Goldberg has suggested new ways of considering the neurological foundations of language and thought, and the special forms this may take in the deaf. I have had the special pleasure, this year, of meeting Harlan Lane and Nora Ellen Groce, whose books so inspired me in 1986, at the start of my journey, and Carol Padden, whose book so influenced me in 1988—their perspectives on the deaf have enlarged my own thought. Several colleagues, including Ursula Bellugi, Jerome Bruner, Robert Johnson, Harlan Lane, Helen Neville, Isabelle Rapin, Israel Rosenfield, Hilde Schlesinger, and William Stokoe, have read the manuscript of this book at various stages and offered comments, criticism, and support, for which I am particularly grateful. To all these and many others, I owe illumination and insights (though my opinions—and mistakes—are wholly my own).

  In March of 1986, Stan Holwitz of the University of California Press instantly responded to my first essay, and urged and encouraged me to expand it into a book; he has given patient support and stimulus during the three years it has taken to realize his suggestion. Paula Cizmar read successive drafts ofthe book, and offered me many valuable suggestions. Shirley Warren has guided the manuscript through production, dealing patiently with ever more footnotes and last-minute changes.

  I am much indebted to my niece, Elizabeth Sacks Chase, who suggested the title—it derives from Pyramus’s words to Thisbe: “I see a voice.…”

  Since completing this book, I have started to do what, perhaps, I should have done at the start—I have begun to learn Sign. I owe special thanks to my teacher, Janice Rimler, of the New York Society for the Deaf, and to my tutors, Amy and Mark Trugman, for struggling valiantly with a difficult, late beginner—and convincing me that it is never too late to begin.

  Finally I must acknowledge the deepest debt of all to four people—two colleagues and two editors—who have played a central part in making possible my work and writing. First to Bob Silvers, editor of the New York Review of Books, who sent me Harlan Lane’s book in the first place, saying, “You’ve never really thought about language; this book will force you to”—as indeed it did. Bob Silvers has a clairvoyant sense of what people have not yet thought about, but should; and, with his special obstetric gift, helps to deliver them of their as-yet-unborn thoughts.

  Second, to Isabelle Rapin, who has been my closest friend and colleague at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine for twenty years, and who herself has worked with the deaf, and thought deeply about them, for a quarter of a century. Isabelle introduced me to deaf patients, took me to schools for the deaf, shared with me her experience of deaf children, and helped me understand the problems of the deaf as I could never have done unaided. (She herself wrote an extensive essay-review [Rapin, 1986] based chiefly on When the Mind Hears)

  I first met Bob Johnson, chairman of the linguistics department at Gallaudet, on my first visit there in 1986, and was introduced by him both to Sign, and to the world of the deaf—a language, a culture, that outsiders can scarcely enter or imagine. If Isabelle Rapin, with Bob Silvers, launched me on this journey, Bob Johnson then took over as my traveling companion and guide.

  Kate Edgar, finally, has filled a unique role as collaborator, friend, editor, and organizer, inciting me at all times to think and write, to see the full aspectuality of the subject, but always to hold on to its focus and center.

  To these four people, then, I dedicate this book.

  New York O. W. S.

  March 1989

  A Deaf World

  WE are remarkably ignorant about deafness, which Dr. Johnson called “one of the most desperate of human calamities”—much more ignorant than an educated man would have been in 1886, or 1786. Ignorant and indifferent. During the last few months I have raised the subject with countless people and nearly always met with responses like: “Deafness? Don’t know any deaf people. Never thought much about it. There’s nothing interesting about deafness, is there?” This would have been my own response a few months ago.

  Things changed for me when I was sent a fat book by Harlan Lane called When the Mind Hears: A History of the Deaf, which I opened with indifference, soon to be changed to astonishment, and then to something approaching incredulity. I discussed the subject with my friend and colleague Dr. Isabelle Rapin, who has worked closely with the deaf for twenty-five years. I got to know better a congenitally deaf colleague, a remarkable and highly gifted woman, whom I had previously taken for granted.1 I started seeing, or exploring for the first time, a number of deaf patients under my care.2 My reading rapidly spread from Harlan Lane’s history to The Deaf Experience, a collection of memoirs by and about the first literate deaf, edited by Lane, and then to Nora Ellen Groce’s Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language, and to a great many other books. Now I have an entire bookshelf on a subject that I had not thought of even as existing six months ago, and have seen some of the remarkable films that have been produced on the subject.3

  One more acknowledgment by way of preamble. In 1969 W. H. Auden gave me a copy, his own copy, of Deafness, a remarkable autobiographical memoir by the South African poet and novelist David Wright, who became deaf at the age of seven. “You’ll find it fascinating,” he said. “It’s a wonderful book.” It was dotted with his own annotations (though I do not know whether he ever reviewed it). I skimmed it, without paying more attention, in 1969. But now I was to rediscover it for myself. David Wright is a writer who writes from the depths of his own experience—and not as a historian or scholar writes about a subject. Moreover, he is not alien to us. We can easily imagine, more or less, what it would be like to be him (whereas we cannot without difficulty imagine what it would be like to be someone born deaf, like the famous deaf teacher Laurent
Clerc). Thus he can serve as a bridge for us, conveying us through his own experiences into the realm of the unimaginable. Since Wright is easier to read than the great mutes of the eighteenth century, he should if possible be read first—for he prepares us for them. Toward the close of the book he writes:

  Not much as been written about deafness by the deaf.4 Even so, considering that I did not become deaf till after I had learned the language, I am no better placed than a hearing person to imagine what it is like to be born into silence and reach the age of reason without acquiring a vehicle for thought and communication. Merely to try gives weight to the tremendous opening of St. John’s Gospel: In the beginning was the Word. How does one formulate concepts in such a condition?

  It is this—the relation of language to thought—that forms the deepest, the ultimate issue when we consider what faces or may face those who are born, or very early become, deaf.

  The term “deaf” is vague, or rather, is so general that it impedes consideration of the vastly differing degrees of deafness, degrees that are of qualitative, and even of “existential,” significance. There are the “hard of hearing,” fifteen million or so in the U.S. population, who can manage to hear some speech using hearing aids and a certain amount of care and patience on the part of those who speak to them. Many of us have parents or grandparents in this category—a century ago they would have used ear trumpets; now they use hearing aids.

  There are also the “severely deaf,” many as a result of ear disease or injury in early life; but with them, as with the hard of hearing, the hearing of speech is still possible, especially with the new, highly sophisticated, computerized, and “personalized” hearing aids now becoming available. Then there are the “profoundly deaf”—sometimes called “stone deaf”—who have no hope at all of hearing any speech, whatever imaginable technological advances are made. Profoundly deaf people cannot converse in the usual way—they must either lip-read (as David Wright did), or use sign language, or both.