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| VOCABULARY DATABASE > VOCABULARYS FOR THE HANDICAPPED > INFORMATION |
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Sign languages for the Deaf
Sign languages have evolved more or less spontaneously in many places around the world. A well-known example if that of the Plains Indians, whose ethnic groups spoke mutually inintelligible languages.
In Europe, the natural sign language was developed for the deaf into a standard language during the 18th c. by Charles-Michel, abbé de l'Epée. His system included both a manual alphabet and signs for whole concepts. Charles-Michel's work planted the seeds for the French Sign Language, which was the precursor of American Sign Language (ASL) and other sign languages. Today, ASL is the fourth most common language in the United States.
Codes for the Blind
At the end of the 18th c., the French teacher Valentin Haüy taught blind children to read by way of texts printed in embossed letters. A 15 year-old student in Haüy's school, Louis Braille, invented the Braille code (in short Braille), which consists of 63 characters, each made up of one to six dots arranged in two columns. Braille is embossed on paper by way of a stylus, and read by passing the fingers over the text.
Braille was later adapted for use with all major languages. Special forms of this code have also been developed for subject-specific purposes, e.g. the Nemeth Code of Braille Mathematics and Scientific Notation (1965).
Other codes
Blissymbols is a visual code that was originally developed as an auxiliary language, but is now used by people with cerebral palsy and other disorders.
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