5 ms·

Ok, im going to sound very ignorant here and im sorry for that. Do deaf people have trouble reading words as well?

ars 4y ago
It's a different language. Sign, and English (or Spanish, etc) whether written or spoken, is a different language from Sign. I would assume close to 100% of deaf people will learn to read that language, but it should still be remembered it's a second language to them.
- robin_reala 4y ago
  Also worth pointing out that there’s not one sign language. ASL (American sign language) and BSL (British sign language) are different languages from each other, and from English as well.
  - bigyikes 4y ago
    Can you have an accent in sign language? Might someone from New York sign differently than someone from Los Angeles?
    - Dracophoenix 4y ago
      If by accent, you mean an idiolect, perhaps, but such an "accent" is likely limited to families or in-jokes among friends. Geographic differences in sign languages are more comparable to differences in dialects. Thus, some sign languages are more mutually intelligible than others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha%27s_Vineyard_Sign_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha%27s_Vineyard_Sign_Langu...
    - rectang 4y ago
      It seems inevitable that slight changes of gesture or angle or rhythm would emerge in isolated signing populations, analogous to the way accents develop in isolated speaking populations.
    - smscott 4y ago
      Absolutely. There are accents, idioms, and even different signs for the same word that may vary between region, generation, and personal history with the language. e.g a southerner can likely guess someone is from the northeast with high confidence and vice versa. People raised Deaf can often tell if another person is hearing, or someone who was raised mainstream without access to sign language until later in life. There can also be family/hyperlocale idioms or even individual signs that won’t be readily understood outside the group; I think this is true for most languages as forms of inside jokes and the like. Two words in ASL that I’ve noted have a few distinct signs in different areas are strawberry and mean (“he is a mean person”).
- yreg 4y ago
  But only the menus are translated to a sign language (I don't know which one). The actual content of the site is not. So the question of how is this useful remains.
klyrs 4y ago
In much of the world, deaf people have additional barriers to accessing education, so the population does see an elevated rate of illiteracy.
- prepend 4y ago
  Do you have a source for this? I would expect that any education system that teaches sign also teaches reading. So it would be good to share the stats you use to understand how dead people have elevated rates of illiteracy.
  - richbell 4y ago
    I suspect there aren't many academic sources detailing the discrimination faced by deaf people, though there might be compilations of first-hand accounts. The deaf community is fairly insular. My partner's father was born in India as the eldest of several boys. Despite his family being well-off, he was treated as a burden and most of his family refused to learn IPSL to be able to communicate with him. His mother and father weren't supportive of his personal, academic, or business pursuits; his brothers all went to prestigious foreign universities and became highly educated. He made his own way to Canada where he learned his 4th and 5th languages, ASL and English, and started a family with a deaf girl his family had arranged a marriage to. The man has gumption, but was never really able to escaped the poverty line.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    I'm not sure about illiteracy rates, but generally I think it is well known that the education system doesn't serve deaf students as well as their hearing counterparts. Note that the second link tries to debunk a statistic, but really more contextualizes it to not look so bad. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15454499/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15454499/ http://www.redeafined.com/2012/04/debunking-fourth-grade-reading-level.html http://www.redeafined.com/2012/04/debunking-fourth-grade-rea...
    - quechimba 4y ago
      They say that too on page 13 here http://www.insor.gov.co/home/wp-content/uploads/filebase/recomendaciones__paginas_web.pdf http://www.insor.gov.co/home/wp-content/uploads/filebase/rec...
victor22 4y ago
Having worked with Colombia Gvmnt IT I'd bet money that this is just an overpriced website build that delivered on a careless written fature request.
- mjhay 4y ago
  That sounds like American government IT as well.
- ugjka 4y ago
  And the actual accessibility is not that great https://accessibilitytest.org/results/HEU-NOIXMBVk https://accessibilitytest.org/results/HEU-NOIXMBVk

ars 4y ago

It's a different language. Sign, and English (or Spanish, etc) whether written or spoken, is a different language from Sign. I would assume close to 100% of deaf people will learn to read that language, but it should still be remembered it's a second language to them.

robin_reala 4y ago
Also worth pointing out that there’s not one sign language. ASL (American sign language) and BSL (British sign language) are different languages from each other, and from English as well.
- bigyikes 4y ago
  Can you have an accent in sign language? Might someone from New York sign differently than someone from Los Angeles?
  - Dracophoenix 4y ago
    If by accent, you mean an idiolect, perhaps, but such an "accent" is likely limited to families or in-jokes among friends. Geographic differences in sign languages are more comparable to differences in dialects. Thus, some sign languages are more mutually intelligible than others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha%27s_Vineyard_Sign_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha%27s_Vineyard_Sign_Langu...
  - rectang 4y ago
    It seems inevitable that slight changes of gesture or angle or rhythm would emerge in isolated signing populations, analogous to the way accents develop in isolated speaking populations.
  - smscott 4y ago
    Absolutely. There are accents, idioms, and even different signs for the same word that may vary between region, generation, and personal history with the language. e.g a southerner can likely guess someone is from the northeast with high confidence and vice versa. People raised Deaf can often tell if another person is hearing, or someone who was raised mainstream without access to sign language until later in life. There can also be family/hyperlocale idioms or even individual signs that won’t be readily understood outside the group; I think this is true for most languages as forms of inside jokes and the like. Two words in ASL that I’ve noted have a few distinct signs in different areas are strawberry and mean (“he is a mean person”).
yreg 4y ago
But only the menus are translated to a sign language (I don't know which one). The actual content of the site is not. So the question of how is this useful remains.

klyrs 4y ago

In much of the world, deaf people have additional barriers to accessing education, so the population does see an elevated rate of illiteracy.

prepend 4y ago
Do you have a source for this? I would expect that any education system that teaches sign also teaches reading. So it would be good to share the stats you use to understand how dead people have elevated rates of illiteracy.
- richbell 4y ago
  I suspect there aren't many academic sources detailing the discrimination faced by deaf people, though there might be compilations of first-hand accounts. The deaf community is fairly insular. My partner's father was born in India as the eldest of several boys. Despite his family being well-off, he was treated as a burden and most of his family refused to learn IPSL to be able to communicate with him. His mother and father weren't supportive of his personal, academic, or business pursuits; his brothers all went to prestigious foreign universities and became highly educated. He made his own way to Canada where he learned his 4th and 5th languages, ASL and English, and started a family with a deaf girl his family had arranged a marriage to. The man has gumption, but was never really able to escaped the poverty line.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  I'm not sure about illiteracy rates, but generally I think it is well known that the education system doesn't serve deaf students as well as their hearing counterparts. Note that the second link tries to debunk a statistic, but really more contextualizes it to not look so bad. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15454499/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15454499/ http://www.redeafined.com/2012/04/debunking-fourth-grade-reading-level.html http://www.redeafined.com/2012/04/debunking-fourth-grade-rea...
  - quechimba 4y ago
    They say that too on page 13 here http://www.insor.gov.co/home/wp-content/uploads/filebase/recomendaciones__paginas_web.pdf http://www.insor.gov.co/home/wp-content/uploads/filebase/rec...

victor22 4y ago

Having worked with Colombia Gvmnt IT I'd bet money that this is just an overpriced website build that delivered on a careless written fature request.

mjhay 4y ago
That sounds like American government IT as well.
ugjka 4y ago
And the actual accessibility is not that great https://accessibilitytest.org/results/HEU-NOIXMBVk https://accessibilitytest.org/results/HEU-NOIXMBVk