52nd clip - 8:20 m./4:52:04 h.
Respecting the paramount importance of learning the first sign, this clip is posted for all deaf people, signers and not.
Reams of paper can be written and tetra-bytes of video can be signed about the critical role acquiring sign language is for all deaf (and hearing) people. Let the metaphors from this 05.07 clip “speak” for themselves.
Click away to watch the utmost joy The Deaf Child (actually, it is you) experience in learning the first sign . . .
Click here for YouTube and DVTV if above is not or slowly downloadable. Don’t forget that in youtube and dvtv, you can enlarge to full screen. Thank you.
Myth Commentary: Learning the first sign, learning the first few steps, the first written word, and so on in our journeys of life is universal and portrayed in various work of art and literature - usually very archetypal. Learning the first sign is also deaf-universal like the previous clip - meeting the signing deaf or even meeting the first deaf person. In any journey of all kinds in stories, learning something (language, weapon, skill, etc) usually comes with a beacon of joy after various hardships (sometimes not). With no question, the utmost important skill for deaf (and hearing) people is learning a language.
History Commentary: Like the previous clip about meeting the signing deaf, all signing deaf people learned their first sign, often lost in memory. The Deaf Child in this clip is actually you, and all the deaf signers before you. This clip not only has deaf history background but also very much part of our signing lives.
Historical anecdotes on learning the first sign are aplenty but mostly sadly unrecorded everywhere. The most famous anecdote is not of a deaf but a deaf and blind person, Helen Keller, who made the first connection between a signed symbol for water and the actual falling stream of water from a hand water pump. Even Helen Keller wrote about it herself. Click on this link for a short biography of Helen (the water incident is the sixth and after this, please notice the wonderful words by her teacher, Anne Sullivan).
The best example to demonstrate the joy the Deaf Child experienced in the previous and this clip is the final scene in the 1979 TV film, “And Your Name is Jonah” when Jonah first saw his group of signing deaf and learned his first sign, his name. If ever I find it in YouTube or elsewhere, embedding this clip here will be the first thing I do. For those who saw this TV film, don’t you remember when the face of Jonah (in the acting body of Jeff Bravin) slowly bursted with joy - his smiling growing larger exposing his young gapped teeth? Click on any of the below on information about this TV film.
The IMDn Website
A so-so brief review in the New York Times
An excellent write-up on the movie 18 years later by Jamie Berke
There is also a personal slant I have for this film which always never fail in infusing filial pride into me. Not only that Bernard Bragg, as an important consultant to the whole production, is my dear “fatherly” friend, my very own dear deaf mother was in the film - appearing for only several seconds as an extra in the deaf club scenes.
In this clip where the Deaf Child was awed by the scroll of hundreds of pictures with accompanied words, the scroll has direct direct historical background. In 1985, I visited the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. Inside the school museum, I was fascinated with two long vertical strips of “cardboards” of pictures with words - one was of farming equipments. (Insert here in the future of an actual picture I have of that). I gazed at them wondering if Laurent Clerc had ever used them in introducing signs to students who first arrived at his deaf school. I believe these two strips of paper with illustrations/words inspired this clip’s Scroll of the First Sign.
I wondered if any schools for the deaf in the past or the present had conducted any ritual or ceremony in teaching the first sign to a sign-virgin mind of deaf children (and adults). Maybe we should in the future? What do you think?
Deaf Life Commentary: The number of hearing people knowing at least one sign is most definitely growing. Not including those who took any sign classes, but those regular non-signing hearing people learning signs from osmosis by the increasing visibility of sign language in America. It is more likely nowadays that a hearing person, if I come up to and ask, know at least one sign. May this wonderful increase continue toward the actualization that everyone can sign someday.
Deafhood Questions:
Do you remember your first sign you learned? Or the first time you began learning sign language? For those who didn’t, what do you think it was for you when you learned signs.
For those who learned sign language later on, do you remember the first sign, other than the first time you saw signing?
For parents of deaf children, do you remember their first sign (or spoken)? If so. have you retold this to your family and friends?
For those hearing people, is there any funny stories about learning the first sign you have?
05.07 Quote
. . . acquire language first, before speech . . .
51st clip - 5:27 m./4:43:54 h.
This clip, about meeting the signing deaf for the FIRST time, is posted with cheering gratitudes to those people who vblogged and commented on deafhood. Deafhood is a concept that definitely will contribute to the continuing paradigm shifting of the Public (and Deaf) Mind on the understanding and the appreciation of the Deaf “World” and on being Deaf. Those who are on a warpath on questioning this new concept of deafhood is, in fact, helping the discourse on deafhood. Those who saw (and wrote/signed about) the psychological and spiritual light of studying (one’s own) deafhood ARE contributing to the growth of our Mind (the Deaf Adult’s Mind) on deafhood or on being deaf. It is a matter of time before the concept of deafhood finally catch fire and engulf us all.
Educational and social services institutions serving any types of deaf children/people will somehow incorporate deafhood. Professionals dealing with the mental health of any types of deaf people will somehow incorporate deafhood. Parents will somehow consider the healthy psychological and spiritual development of their deaf children with the aid from the discourse on deafhood. What about the CODAs dealing with the fact that they have deaf parents? Would discussing deafhood with my two growing hearing daughters help them develop healthy attitudes toward themselves as CODAs? And many many more in the future of deafhood or being deaf -
Yes, I do see the light. Do you?
Meeting the Signing Deaf is an important part of Deafhood or being (with the) Deaf.
Enjoy watching the joyous first time the Deaf Child met the signing deaf people in Siepee’s Monastery. Click away . . .
Click on the word for youtube or dvtv, if above clip is slowly or undowloadable. Thank you.
Myth Commentary: Meeting the signing deaf people for the first time is an archetypal (universal) situation most deaf people undergo. It is deaf-universal. In the Deaf Child’s (the collective deaf or the deaf community) journey as a deaf person (deafhood), meeting signing deaf for the first time is as critical as anyone deaf or in the field of deafness might understand. A deaf person meet signing deaf person for the first time. Countless of manifestations of this archtypal situation (even more so with the next clip - learning the first sign) had happened, is happening, and will happen.
History Commentary: While every clip of the myth have myth commentary, not all clips in the myth have deaf history background. Very few clips have DIRECT deaf historical incidents like this one. The Deaf Child in this clip is Laurent Clerc. He met his first group of deaf people in the year of 1797 as an eleven year old boy. Click here to see an ASL narration of the possible site where Laurent Clerc first entered the deaf school in Paris.
In deaf history, deaf persons did first meet the signing deaf. Laurent Clerc probably met the signing deaf for the first time in the INJS school in Paris, if not beforehand in LeBalme and Lyons, France. Where did George Veditz meet his first signing deaf person? in Colorado School for the Deaf? Bob Davila probably met his signing deaf at California School for the Deaf, Berkeley for the first time. How would Marlee Matlin, if it did happen, describe her feelings about meeting her signing deaf person for the first time? We could dig up literature and find first time encounters. We could ask every living deaf person this question. It should not be limited to them. Hearing people, too, remember meeting signing deaf person for the first time, probably except CODAs and others. What about Barack Obama’s first time meeting and interacting with the Signing Deaf? I could go on and on. Meeting the Signing Deaf is universal in our history, in the NOW, and will always in the future where deaf people are.
Deafhood Questions:
- for signing DHH persons - Do you distinctly remembered seeing signing deaf person(s) for the very first time? If your parents are deaf and signing, do you remember meeting other deaf people for any reasons feeling as if it was a first time? If you do not remember, it was likely that you were born to signing deaf parents, right?
- for non-signing DHH persons - what were your feelings when you saw signing deaf for the first time? Over time did that change? What is your current feeling about the signing deaf person or people?
Questions:
- for Hearing parents: After learning that your child is deaf, do you remember meeting any deaf person for the first time? If you had met them beforehand, did you seek them?
- for Hearing non-coda signers: Do you remember the time you started to feel you wanted to learn sign language? Was it during the time you first met a signer? a signing deaf person?
- for Hearing public: Having never seen a signing deaf person, can you describe your feelings and thoughts meeting signing deaf person(s) for the first time?
Deafhood Commentary: If you have read this far, do we see clearly how important is meeting the signing deaf for the first time is in the process of being deaf or learning sign language? Deafhood is simply thinking about being (with) the deaf. Go to this link which discuss the psychological aspect of deafhood or being (with the) deaf.
05.06’s Quote:
. . . find your deaf center . . .
50th clip - 3:20 m./4:38 h.
Since this is the 50th clip, let it be a time to pause for a little celebration and reflection. It has been a year ago last summer when the story-epic-myth began its next manifestation in the form of a blog - video, art, and words weaved into a “web-book” in ASL on the internet. Sometimes far in a corner of my mind, I ask if the myth itself is waiting for the internet to arrive?
NEW CHANGES: The post titling changes - chapter title will be abbreviated like SM here and the clip title moves up to become the post title. Pictures of the Cadenhead and Unane-Bortin scrolls will be added. They can be viewed in the youtube myth compilation video (link). Certain images from these two scrolls will be used (I’ll try) to flow with the text, like blog artists do in the a ‘ la ronda oceanic ways.
I was about to post 05.05 last month when I found out that this clip is the 50th so I held back and waited until I finish signing the 2nd half of the saga in one stretch. I am done “for now”. Only chapter 11 is not yet signed as it’ll have over 20 clips. The Deaf Child becomes the Deaf Adult only in one chapter of the whole story/history. Check toc (table of contents) at the top of the page. It is an important chapter covering the “maturation” and empowerment of the deaf community.
The recent 6 days signing straight stretch process to finish signing the 2nd half found me exhilarated and others. I flitted from one part of deaf history to an aspect of my/our deaf life today, zigzagging back and forth, in weaving information into ASL art in a certain clip. I was struck agape once again that it was actually a mythmaking process. (also considered as novel-making). Let me type here Joseph Campbell’s words that satisfied me deeply.
Mythology is an organization of images metaphoric of experience, action, and fulfillment of the human spirit in the field of a given culture at a given time.
It is what I was and still am doing. Head swaying here again.
This story/epic yet remains to become a/the certified mythology of the deaf community. To reach the same level of symbiosis between sacred literature (myths/religions) and their people all over the world, the deaf community, for a long time, never had that symbiosis until lately. The deaf community DO have sacred literature in the form of raw history and legends, but not yet transformed into a simple sacred archetypal story. And it boggles my mind to continue in this stream of thought . . .
. . . now I take a deep breath, look around, and be appreciative. Celebrate that I can and did reach the 50th. I go day by day, with the sun up and down, focusing on posting each clip slowly after time and finish probably next summer. For you, viewers, readers, and especially the sweet commenters, thank you for staying with and supporting me. Onward to 75th, 100th, then the 125th clip!
Now here to the 05.05 clip -
The 50th clip of the Deaf Child mythology is posted with saluting hands and our heads bent in thanks to our earliest “superintendent” of deaf schools in the past. The Deaf Child finally meets Abbe Siepee. We, in our minds - bow/bent, and “think” - that we thank those historical personage behind the archetype of Siepee for being instrumental in shaping the turn of events in deaf history. Epee’s and Sicard’s work in Paris as the first and second director of the “first” signing school for the deaf.
Enjoy the meeting between the deaf child and the director of the monastery, Abbe Siepee. Click away . . .
Click here for YouTube or click here for DVTV if above undownloadable, too slow, or preferring full screen.
05.05 Images: New Feature - I have about 12 scrolls made by students in my former five deaf studies/history classes. The best few of these were scanned. For now, I will put the images here, later weaved a’ la ronda. Some will be cropped to a certain image, like the Cadenhead pastel art, or a wide shot like the Bortin collage art.
From the Cadenhead Scroll -
From the Unane-Bortin Scroll -
Myth Commentary: In the journey of the Deaf Child, meeting Siepee was somehow similar for almost every deaf person meeting the “principal” of the signing (and oral) deaf school. Meeting your “teacher in authority” is experienced by most, if not all, deaf people.
The Deaf Child is all deaf/hh people collectively “speaking”. What the deaf child experienced at the castle and/or the monastery reflect most of the deaf/hh people’s education, except for those in the public schools in the last 30 years. That comes in the Leather Book chapter.
After the Castle, the Deaf Child now feels peace and serenity in the Monastery. The pressure of the castle and the natural feel at the monastery - the dichotomy between them, to speak or to sign, is the deaf experience from the past into the present.
Deaf History Commentary: Deaf history behind this clip involves stories of Massieu meeting Sicard in Bordeaux, Clerc meeting Sicard/Massieu, and Berthier meeting Sicard/Clerc/Massieu and more deaf teachers. Clerc was the one many American students who met and some of them went on to be teachers/administrators at other schools. And it goes on and on until when I first met Richard Brill, my superintendent in CSDRiverside, in 1965. The cycle continues to me and my current and future deaf students . . .
Deaf history commentary on this clip will focus on Epee and Sicard, both an abbe. The writing and signing I envision including video in ASL requires time and work. So for now, here are just two paragraphs in English.
Charles Michel de l’Epee (1712 - 1789) continues to be honored and cherished by culturally deaf people today. His place in deaf history is in the beginning - in the genesis of deaf history. Deaf communities and standardized sign languages seriously became permanent on earth due to the establishment of deaf signing schools. That is also why we need to continue to honor (and revere) Epee. He was the first director. He started the deaf school later in his life. He did not invent sign language but used what was already out there among deaf people in the streets of Paris. He tried to mold the signing to reflect French written language - which is known as methodological signed French. The earliest deaf sacred spaces arrived with a merely simple act of starting a school which still links to us all today.
Roch Ambroise Cucurron Sicard (1742 - 1822) is a more interesting tale to tell. Epee’s successor was not a humble aesetic-type of a monk like himself. Sicard was more flamboyant one. He loved to give speeches, explained “his” miracle how the deaf could be educated, raised money, and intermingled into the French government with the King and the court. During his time, many French intellectuals, thinkers, royalty, and the common people flocked to his demonstrations with sign language and deaf education. His flamboyant ways critically helped the school in many ways but it almost killed him. The story of Sicard during the French Revolution needs to be told. So many deaf people do not know this story. (Here is where the future link to ck narrating this story in ASL). Sicard had to flee France to England and there, met Gallaudet who probably was enroute to Paris. And I could go on and on.
Deafhood Questions: Do you remember meeting your first principal at a deaf school or program? Do you still have memories of the first time you met a signing educational “superior” of the school you are about to attend? Have you ever experience the longing to go to a state residential school but couldn’t for various reasons, and having to stay at local public schools/programs? What was it like for you to finally meet the deaf and hearing administrators? More questions can be added here.
“Honor Thy Deaf History”
49th clip - Title: Entering the Monastery - 6:01 m./4:35:17 h.
This clip/post focuses on the world’s first public (free) school for the deaf in Paris, France, known either as the INJS or the St. Jacques school. The formal name is, in English - the National Institution of the Deaf Youth. To view the video about this school as visited in 1992, please click on this link to go to my website post focused on that school or this link to the video posted at my deafhistory youtube channel.
I also would like to share a short anecdote to reflect many “mystical” or “omen signal” connections the myth directed me to notice within the “Deaf” Life we experience on earth. For example, in one myth discussion session in 2003, a participant brought up the Martha’s Vineyard topic in deaf history - which led me to notice that the initials of the name of the god in this myth, VisMa, is VM which corresponds to the reversed initials of Martha’s Vineyard - MV. And then I experienced a goose-pimpled realization, almost mystical.
Another stronger but similiar experience happened when I first walked into the St. Jacques school in 1992. The name of this chapter, Siepee’s Monastery, was coined before I traveled to Europe to visit various historical sites behind the myth. When I opened the large green doors at the front entrance, the first thing I saw was the high iron gates few feet away directly opposite me. Both the iron gates and the green doors enclosed a small “foyer” where visitors need to go to a booth on one side in order to gain entrance to the school. As you can see in the St. Jacques video (links above), I noticed the two letters on the gate - S and M . . . . Lo and behold - Siepee’s Monastery! Goose-pimples all over. I knew what they might mean and after asking a local deaf person from the school for verification, my gut instinct was right that S stands for sourde (deaf) and M for muet (mute). I then knew that the name for the 5th chapter of the Deaf Child mythology was exactly right - to the bull’s eye.
All right, enjoy viewing the Deaf Child’s first reactions when entering the Monastery for the first time. Click away . . .
Click here for YouTube if above is undownloadable, too slow, or wanting full screen. Thank you.
Myth Commentary: As in any myth/epic of an archetypal hero-savior, there are “way-stations” where the hero stopped by during her/his journey of “development”. Some of these places became obstacles or challenges to endure (for example, Hein’s Castle). Other places became refuges or temporary homes (for example, Siepee’s Monastery as for our Deaf Child. This 05.04 clip or scene is deemed universal because almost all deaf people underwent the similar experience of entering a “deaf” school (or class) for the first time. As in almost every clip of the myth (or the myth as a whole), it is probably not possible to stop analyzing the symbolism/applications/meanings the myth offers in connection to our dDeafhood, dDeaf experience, and Deaf history. That is why creating this myth over 19 years still is a long, slow, cerebral, and somehow sensual pleasure for me.
Deaf History Commentary: The connection between monasteries/monks and deaf education in deaf history is fascinating and document able. Words have been written about the use of sign language among the monks and its’ contribution to deaf education. Here are several links if the “curiosity got your cat.”
The wikipedia entry.
A book published by Cambridge University Press.
A 1997 book about Benedictine monks and sign language.
A journal article or the book by Susan Plann on the history of deaf education in Spain.
The use of a monastery to serve as the archtype symbolizing our earliest signing deaf schools in Europe AND of the monks as another archetype symbolozing our first signing teachers of the deaf is a way for me/us to give thanks to the ancient them for something fertile (sign language) they bequeathed to us, the Deaf, even though we signed among our families and friends long before that. It was the schools they established that “turned the wheel of motion” for us to form the earliest deaf communities in the last half of the 18th century in Europe. The manual alphabet ASL uses came from Laurent Clerc and the St. Jacques school (and Epee) which, in turn, was borrowed from the manual alphabet printed in the book printed in 1620 by a hearing Spanish monk, Juan Pablo Bonet.
Deafhood Question: (for a deaf person) Do you remember the first time you entered a residential deaf (signing or oral) school? If coming from oral school(s), any differences in arriving at the subsequent signing school? If entering for the first time, were you aware of the school or its’ use of signing beforehand?
(for hearing people) What was your impressions when you first visited a large school for the deaf (residential, state, day, etc) school? Like entering a foreign land? If you are a CODA, what are your feelings when entering one?
**************
Below is a thumbprint of a small poster I got in gratis, if I remember correctly, from the ALSF (Academie de la langue des Signes Francaise - click here for their website) which was housed on the fourth floor at the St. Jacques deaf school during the time I stayed there in the summer of 1992. As of now, I still do not have any information on who did the drawing or where interested people could get/purchase a copy.
Please click on it to enlarge for your viewing pleasure.
“Honor thy Deaf History”
48th clip - Title: Back to the Deaf Child - 6:30 m./4:29:16 h.
This clip is posted with gratitude to my soul brother, eLiot Helman, who was my first “Aaron” voicing the myth for me in 1994 at Ohlone College in Fremont, CA. We first met at Gallaudet in 1981 when we performed together as Herald (me in ASL, him in spoken English) in the play, “Marat/Sade”. We have remained close friends through all the highs and lows in our lives. Every time Eliot and I get together, he is always all “eyes” for juicy tidbits of the myth’s new development. Because of the above and his true friendship, I post this clip with deep gratitude to him. He is the one of the handful few who are riding on the wings of VisMa with me.
eL, we keep our chins up, our hands rooted inside VisMa, and enjoy the various breezes in life up there -
And now, everybody, enjoy the next clip about the time VisMa returned to the Deaf Child in order to bring her/him west to Siepee. Click away . . .
Click here for YouTube if above is undownloadable, too slow to download, or wanting a full screen. Thank you.
Myth Commentary: This clip does not have direct historical background except for modeling after a classic situation where the countless of parents realized that it was their mistake enrolling their deaf child(ren) in an oral school and deciding that a school using sign language was the better option. There were some, maybe few, deaf students who succeed in a strictly oral only upbringing. My gut instinct is, based on my 25+ years in the field of deaf education, my research in deaf history, and interacting with many different kinds of deaf adults, that a large, anywhere between 70 to 90, percent of deaf people reared in oral environment turned to sign language at different points of their lives. It is possible to gather several examples from the actual lives of deaf people to support the metaphors used in this clip. Someday this will be done.
Deafhood Question: After attending an oral school for a certain number of years, what was your feelings when your parents (or someone else) informed you that you will be going/moving to a different school, this time the one using sign language?
For those of you who has been following the story, have you noticed two new additions to the clips? The clip title under the numbered chapter title. And a quote related to the myth or to anything Deaf at the end of the clip. It is much fun tinkering with the editing process and making the clips better as time goes along. Comments? Suggestions?
Worship the Deaf Child Within You.
47th Clip - Title: Discovering the Deaf Girls - (04:26 m. - 4:22:46 h.)
This clip is posted with homage to Charles-Michel de l’Epee who created the first Deaf “sacred” space by establishing an educational institution critical in the nascence of sign languages, deaf culture, and deaf communities. It is important to note that he did NOT “invent” sign language or started a deaf community. He merely established a public school using sign language - probably the world’s first Deaf sacred communal space where deaf people can flourish in Gaia-God given ways - where deaf people could finally congregate as a community which resulted in the creation of sign language and deaf culture by themselves. The school Epee began in Paris spawned more deaf signing schools in Europe and ultimately in the United States through Laurent Clerc.
This clip is also posted with hands outstretched welcoming a Deaf artist into this story. She is an actress and a children’s book author I was re-acquainted with last night at the KodaWest benefit gala. She was not aware of this DC myth so I explained, in as few ASL signs as possible, my artistic/scholastic/spiritual work on this story. Her enthused responses were typical of very few people who understood the use of metaphors and archetypes in sacred and popular literature. When she exclaimed, “I love metaphors,” I knew that she was one of the rare kindred spirits. As I began describing the Tower Mountain, her hand rose up in front of me, telling me to stop. She want to dive into the myth with a blank state of mind. AA, I give you a warm welcome into a sacred story that does belongs to you as a Deaf person.
Dive into this video clip describing how VisMa FIRST discovered Abbe’ Siepee. Click away . . .
Click here for YouTube if above is undownloadable, too slow to download, or wanting a full screen. Thank you.
Deaf History Commentary: The historical background of the fifth chapter of the DC myth, Siepee Monastery, focuses on the birth of sign languages and deaf communities. The discussion on that history will be broken into parts that correspond to metaphors used the next 13 clips of this chapter. This clip discusses how VisMa first met Abbe Siepee as he met the two deaf girls who led him to begin a monastery (”school”) for the deaf which will be featured prominently in the SIepee’s Monastery chapter of the myth.
Abbe Charles-Michel de l’Epee is still revered today as the Father of manual education for the deaf. His legacy continues to shine as opposed to A. G. Bell whose legacy is now being tarnished based on the hearing public’s growing understanding of his role in degrading sign languages and the deaf community. For more information on Epee himself, please click on this link at Wikipedia, in New Advent - Catholica encyclopedia website, and at the answer.com site. We can find people all over naming their places after Epee. For example, Click here to learn a little more about a children playground named de l’ Epee Deaf Center in Mississippi or click here to look at a painting of a street in Paris named after him. Click here for a picture and some information on the gravesite of Epee in Paris. Click here for further information on Epee’s published works.
I asked Bernard Truffant, a deaf historian in Orleans, France in 1992 if he could sign this French Epee legend to me on videotape. Click here to go to my deaf history website where you can view him describing, in French Sign Language, the first encounter between Epee and the two deaf girls. It is also subtitled for those who could not understand his signing.
Also below here is one bronze plaque made by a deaf sculptor on the same event described in the myth. Click on the photo to enlarge.
46th Clip - Title: Finding Monks - (04:03 mins - 4:18:20 hours)
This first clip of chapter 5 is posted to give more recognition to Etienne de Fay, one of the earliest deaf teacher of the deaf in history. Even though the history of deaf education began in Spain in the 1500’s, barring more discoveries might be made, the world’s first deaf teacher of the deaf was probably Etienne de Fay from France. More on him below.
Enjoy the first clip of Siepee’s Monastery where VisMa, flying westward, sought help to raise the Deaf Child.
Click here for YouTube if above undownloadable, too slow to download, or wanting a full screen.
Deaf History Commentary: In this clip VisMa observed one monastery, convinently put together as one in the myth, which actually are several monasteries, first in Spain and then in France (possibly other places).
The world knew that the first teacher of the Deaf was Abbe de l’ Epee, partly the namesake of the title of this chapter. As Bernard Truffaut reported in his research, Etienne de Fay actually taught deaf students some 40 years before Epee started teaching the deaf (focus of the next clip, 05.02). Here is what we know of our first deaf teacher.
Etienne de Fay was born deaf around 1669, apparently from a noble family. At the age of 5, he was placed in the Abbey of Saint-Jean d’ Amiens where he stayed for the rest of his life. In the abbey (or monastery) de Fay learned reading, writing, arithmetic, mechanic drawing, architecture, a remarkable feat for a deaf person at that time. There are written testimonies that he was skilled in communicating with sign language (remember that was some 50 years before Epee in Paris). When the abbey expanded, he drew architectural plans on which portions were built. The walls and the plans survived today.
Several deaf children were placed under the tutelage of Etienne de Fay. The first glimmer of deaf history began when a famous deaf person, Azy d’Etavigny, was first taught by de Fay before going on to become the pupil of the famous French oralist, Jacob Periere. The venerated Abbe de l’ Epee knew of Periere and his famous pupil and started the world’s first public school for the deaf around the same time (the main focus of chapter 5 - Siepee’s Monastery).
There is a deaf history organization based in Orleans, France named Association Etienne de Fay. Click here to go to their website.
Bibliography:
Truffaut, Bernard. (1993) Etienne de Fay and the History of the Deaf. From Fischer and Lane (editors) Looking Back: A Reader of Deaf Communities and Their Sign language. Hamburg: Germany. Signum Press. pages 13 - 24.
The art for the title of the fifth chapter, Siepee’s Monastery, of the Deaf Child mythology. Click on the image to enlarge.
 
Â
 The title mandala of the fifth chapter, Siepee’s Monastery, of the Deaf Child mythology. Click on the image to enlarge.
