Why is Sign Language Used? Sign language is a way for people that are deaf or hard of hearing to communicate with manual fingerspelling. Many hearing parents also use sign language with their hearing infants or young children because our hands and fingers develop before our mouths can start to form words. Different forms of sign language are used throughout the world.
First teachers of Sign Language Geronimo Cardano was the first scholar to discover that teaching doesn’t require hearing. You can teach by using written words in the 1500s. Pedro Ponce de Leon was also very successful with his teaching methods while teaching deaf children in Spain. Juan Pablo de Bonet was inspired by Leon’s methods and started to use his own teachings to teach deaf people. His teachings consisted of: writing, reading, and his manual alphabet to educate the deaf. The manual alphabet was the first ever recognized in history. The hand movements corresponded to different
sounds of speech. Abbe de L'Epee organized a social and religious organization for deaf people until around 1750. Start ASL.com calls him “One of the most important people in the history of sign language,”. He established the first free deaf school in 1771. The signs he taught his students soon became a standard language. This was called the Old French Sign Language. This language spread across Europe as more students were educated. L’Epee is known as the “Father of the Deaf” because of the 21 schools he established and all he has done for the deaf.