Centuries of Monastic Silence Fostered the Creation of Sign Language, Empowering the Deaf

For centuries, deafness was seen as an insurmountable disadvantage, an insurmountable barrier between individuals and speech. However, in the shadow of the cloisters and then in the humanist circles of the Renaissance, a form of silent expression began to emerge. This voiceless language, forged in the constraint of religious silence and the desire to teach those excluded from speech, would become a tool of emancipation, culture and transmission.

When deafness condemned one to social invisibility

In ancient times, deafness was often confused with an inability to think or learn. As Le Figaro reports, Aristotle even likened the deaf to an inferior form of life. In his eyes, without oral language, there could be no thought. This idea influenced Roman law, which denied deaf people certain fundamental rights. For example, they could neither inherit nor pass on legally. At that time, speech fully defined the human condition.

In the Middle Ages, marginalization persisted. Nevertheless, a silent transformation was beginning in European monasteries. Linked to the rule of Saint Benedict, monks of certain orders were required to observe extended periods of silence, sometimes daily, sometimes seasonal. To compensate for this ban on speech, systems of codified gestures were gradually put in place. They were used to ask for bread, signal a priority or organize the day's activities. The order of Cluny, in the 10th century, was one of the first to create a visual dictionary of gestures used in its abbeys. But it was not yet a language, rather an internal code, derived from Latin and strictly functional.

However, this medieval gestural culture, strongly visual, would prepare the ground. The deaf themselves, numerous at the time due to diseases affecting the ear, used forms of spontaneous gestural communication. In certain regions such as the island of Martha's Vineyard in the United States, entire communities developed their own local sign systems.

The origin of sign language, the fruit of forced silences and isolated geniuses

In the 16th century, a decisive turning point occurred in the education of deaf people. In Spain, Pedro Ponce de León, a Benedictine monk, developed a method inspired by the silence of his order. He adapts it, little by little, to the teaching of deaf children from the nobility. These are no longer just ritual gestures, but signs designed to transmit structured knowledge. According to National Geographic, this approach marks a founding milestone in the history of sign language.

A few decades later, another Spanish cleric, Juan de Pablo Bonet, refined these practices. He designs a manual alphabet in which each letter corresponds to a configuration of the hand. Published in 1620 under the name “Abecedario demostrativo”, this work constitutes the first formalized attempt to teach both oral and gestural language. His method combines dactylology and oralism, in a hybrid approach that is still debated today.

But it was in France in the 18th century that a real institutionalization of sign language took shape. Abbot Charles-Michel de l'Épée, often considered the “father of the deaf”, founded the first free school for young deaf people in Paris. He brings together children from all over France, each bringing their own family signs. The abbot observes them, harmonizes them, then creates “methodical” signs intended to reproduce the structure of French. Even if this signed grammar remains questionable, his initiative allows the creation of a unified gestural dictionary, a first step towards a common language.

Far from being the only echo of religious practices, this construction is also the fruit of an emerging humanism. Abbot de l'Épée alone finances his institution and pleads for recognition of the intelligence of the deaf. His work inspired the first American establishments, notably the American School for the Deaf, founded in 1817 by Gallaudet after training in Paris. This is how American Sign Language (ASL) inherits both LSF and local contributions.

The slow conquest of a fully human language

It was not until recent decades that sign languages ​​were recognized as natural languages ​​in their own right. It was not until recent decades that sign languages ​​were recognized as natural languages ​​in their own right. In France, French Sign Language is today seen as a real linguistic system. It has its own rules of syntax, grammar and word construction. In addition, it does not translate French word for word. It is structured differently, with its own logic. In the United States, ASL follows a similar model. It is also moving away from spoken English, as highlighted in an NIDCD fact sheet. Same observation in the United Kingdom, where the BSL operates autonomously.

Recent research confirms that the construction of signed sentences activates the same brain areas as oral languages. Better yet, studies in isolated communities have shown that deaf children deprived of language spontaneously create coherent gestural systems, proof that the need for language is universal. From Martha's Vineyard to Paris, or from Cluny to Hartford, the same thread connects the improvised signs of monasteries to those taught today in universities.