Biblio Files: talking about books

Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language
Hereditary Deafness on Martha's Vineyard, 1985
by Nora Ellen Groce
Jonathan Lambert, a deaf man, moved to the Martha's Vineyard Island in 1694. His is the first recorded case of deafness on the Island, but far from the last. The group of people who moved from Kent to Martha's Vineyard in the seventeenth century carried with them a recessive gene for deafness. They also brought with them a sign language and an inclusion of the deaf in their midst unparalleled anywhere else in any other time in European or American culture. Due to inbreeding, deafness was fairly common on Martha's Vineyard for centuries, and conversational competence in the local sign language was standard. Deaf men on Martha's Vineyard, unlike deaf elsewhere in the nation at that time, were deemed competent to vote, hold office, sign legal documents, and otherwise act as full members of society.
This book is frequently cited as proof that the deaf can be fully integrated into society and that deafness does not have to be a handicap. I read this book having already read many excerpts of it in other books, among them No Pity by Joseph Shapiro. Therefore, I expected this book to be mostly about the workings of the Martha's Vineyard community and the lives of its members. What the book actually focuses on are the origins of the society. Groce traces the genetics of the hereditary deafness on Martha's Vineyard and the usage of sign by the ancestors of the colonizers of Martha's Vineyard. She considers why sign became commonplace, and compares it to the communities surrounding it. Interestingly, Groce is very clear about where all of her information comes from. When she fills her guesses in, the reader is made aware of it. This makes the book read as a scholarly account rather than a piece intended for a general audience.
In considering what made the Islanders learn sign, Groce overlooks something. None of the people born deaf on Martha's Island ever learned to speak or to read lips, and none heard at all. Therefore, they had to be signed to. To include the deaf, the Islanders had to learn sign. Groce assumes that those born deaf cannot learn to speechread, and that speechreading, picking up less that half of all words, would not serve to integrate the deaf. However, the ability to speechread is almost as hereditary as the ability to hear. Includes end notes, an extensive bibliography, and an index.
Happy reading.