• Question: If you were born deaf, what language would you think in?

    Asked by beckybeanx to Cat, Daz, Holly, Johnson, Pamela on 14 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Pamela Lithgow

      Pamela Lithgow answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Hi Becky,
      I think it would be very difficult to describe. I think we are conditioned to think in the language we speak so I think a deaf person probably thinks very differently. Maybe you would have your very own language made up by you and only you know what it is. I think that is a really interesting question as it is very difficult for anyone to really know the answer!
      Pam

    • Photo: Darren Braddick

      Darren Braddick answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Hi Becky,

      I couldn’t say for sure, but I would guess the same one you write and read in :). Although.. You’d have no idea how it sounded. Deaf people can speak though, and they speak these languages. The question might also be; even if you are not deaf, do you think in any language at all yourself? We’d say it is English, or the language you are, but how about in people who speak two languages? I wonder… I do not know 🙂

    • Photo: Cat O'Connor

      Cat O'Connor answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Hi Beckybeanx,

      Wow I really don’t know! I know that deaf people (who can speak) spend a long time learning how to say words in the way we’re used to hearing them. So maybe when they see a word written down, what they imagine what it sounds like could be totally different from how we say it.

      And how about when they dream; how do the characters in their dreams communicate?

      Picking up on Daz’s point about people who speak two languages: I used to spend my summers in Germany when I was in secondary school, learning the language, doing some show jumping and teaching kids how to horse-ride. I always found that about two weeks into my time there I began thinking in German and also dreaming in German. It was bizarre but I loved it! It did take a while to switch back when I came home though 😀

      Hope this helps,

      Cat

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