This Wholesome Fact About Sign Language and the Sacraments
According to the World Health Organization, 5% of the population suffers from disabling hearing loss. With so many hearing-impaired individuals in the world, it’s important that society caters to ensuring they have access to the same resources as anybody else. In this historical fact, we can see the beginning stages of this blooming: “TIL after a chance encounter, Charles-Michel de l’Épée was taught to sign by the deaf. Believing the deaf should be able to receive the sacraments, he founded a school in 1760 to teach sign language. His public advocacy enabled deaf people to legally defend themselves in court for the first time.” – Obscure Fact by Brutal_Deluxe_28
Abbe Charles Michel de L’Epee, a French Catholic priest, founded the first social and religious association for deaf people around 1750. Soon after, he completely dedicated his life to educating the deaf. Abbe Charles Michel de L’Epee established the first public free deaf school in 1771. This huge step in deaf advocacy was both overdue and before its time. He developed a system for spelling out French words with a manual alphabet and expressing whole concepts with simple signs. From l’Epée’s system developed French Sign Language (FSL), still in use in France today and the precursor of American Sign Language.