This introductory historical bibliography comprises some 220 items mainly of English-language materials (some being translations). It arose from the realisation that sign language and the everyday life of deaf South & South-West Asians, as well as the signing or gestural communication by millions of other Asians, are poorly documented and have very little place in public knowledge. An historical base is almost entirely absent from the modest tally of modern journal literature, including that of Indian linguistics. A recent western philosophical history of language and deafness suggests that "Asian sign languages are even more mysterious ... it would seem that there are no records of indigenous Eastern signing systems..." [1] An index of Indian serials in psychology and sociology (broadly understood) from 1886 to 1970 lists a single item on sign language, amongst only three under "Deaf: Means of Communication". [2] Nevertheless, a more detailed search shows that various sorts of signed communication have been noticed and recorded, in footnotes and unexpected places, since antiquity. Deafness and deaf people also appear in odd corners of historical material of many centuries. Often such references are rather derogatory; but this will hardly surprise modern deaf people. Such items are collected and listed here to show that deaf people did occupy some space in society, however constricted it may have been.
References to a variety of signed and gestural forms of communication are listed below, without the intention of entering debates about issues of 'natural' gesture, mime, iconicity, home sign, and formal sign language. The aim is to be inclusive - users may interpret, add, or discard as they choose. Biomedical studies of deafness have mostly been omitted - being already accessible in standard medical bibliographies - unless they have particular social implications for the lives of deaf people. Magazine and newspaper materials are also omitted.
Dates and Periods. The present historical references are grouped in three approximate and non-standard periods:
(a) Antiquity; (b) c. 1200-1750; (c) 1750-1970. These are for current convenience only - they suggest some changes in the types of source, but are purposely removed from the precise dates indicating changes of political power. Where dating of texts is shown, it is intended to be within the mainstream of scholarly opinion for which some evidence and argument can be offered; but obviously there is a wide range of opinion about the dates of material from antiquity. (All dates given are BC, or CE, i.e. Before Christ, or Christian Era). Materials translated in modern times are generally listed in their original period. However, folklore collections and translations (with the exception of Somadeva) appear in the 1750-1970 period, even though the material is probably many centuries older. Some post-1970 literature has been added at the end, without attempting a comprehensive search, to sketch lightly a period during which formal sign languages began slowly to make some progress towards official recognition in South Asia - or at least, during which some deaf people actively focused on such a goal. From all periods some excerpts are given in annotations, to indicate the nature of the reference or simply for the intrinsic interest of eye-witness accounts e.g. of earlier deaf people in rather obscure ethnological or missionary literature.
Geographical Region. While the major focus is on historical India, the region 'South Asia & South West Asia' has been interpreted broadly; thus a few items originating in ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia, and from Arabia and Persia, and as far north as Tibet, are included in view of the historical, religious and cultural links and interchange across the regions. Some alternative English translations are listed, with the aim of increasing access to earlier material, and also because sometimes what appear to be 'key points' may be obscured in translation, or may be given undue weight (see e.g. annotations under both versions of Somadeva's Kathasaritsagara, below). In such matters, of course, a scrutiny of original texts is necessary to discover whether the issue is resolvable. (However, Sanskrit, Tamil, Persian, Bengali or other original language editions are mostly omitted from this bibliography; those who are able to use them will already be aware of them).
Terminology. The English terminology used in titles and annotations (e.g. "deaf and dumb", "mute" etc) reflects historical usage, and has not been altered to accord with modern preferences. Works originally in Sanskrit or other Asian languages have usually been listed under the original author or title, sometimes in brackets, with the translator's or editor's names after the title.
Transliteration & Diacriticals. Around 1030 CE, the learned Albiruni complained about the problems of expressing Indian words in Arabic and Persian scripts. After nearly 1000 years of technological progress, the writing of Indian, Persian and Arabic words in Roman script remains problematical... In the unpublished print version of this bibliography, diacritical marks are shown in titles according to the various systems used in different periods and different languages, by various writers and publishers; but they are usually not shown in annotations, except in direct quotations. In the website version, for technical reasons, the diacriticals used in titles and quotations, and which belong to non-European languages, have been substituted by the use of capital letters, in titles and direct quotation. The majority of these were originally long 'a' or long 'i', represented by a small bar above 'a' or 'i'; these are now 'A' and 'I'. Similarly, the letters d, h, m, n, r, s, t, having diacritical dots or marks below OR above, are now represented by D, H, M, N, R, S, T.
This is a very basic system and obviously not a completely transparent one, e.g. it does not serve for diacriticals belonging to capital letters beginning sentences or names, and it fails to differentiate sounds such as 's', 'sh', 'sch', 'z'. The use of capitals in the middle of words merely warns that a change has been made. In the great majority of cases the original letter will be obvious to anyone interested in the original languages; the remaining cases can be resolved with a dictionary. (In one case where Arabic roots are given and the diacritical is vital to finding them in a dictionary, the capital letter appears in square brackets - see Kassis, below). The fact that 'standard European' diacriticals remain untouched while 'non-European' ones have been changed (imperfectly), is merely a result of the limitations first of Roman script, then of European/American software, and incompatibility of screen drivers around the world.
Sacred Texts. In listing the sacred scriptures and other books of various religions, it should be noted that the sole purpose of the annotation is to draw attention to matters considered relevant to signing, to gesture and to deafness. No view or opinion is intended about the religious or other value of the texts, or about the beliefs of adherents of those religions. Such adherents, having 'insider knowledge', may be able to bring out further interesting material from their venerable texts, with pertinence to deafness, signing and gesture. They are cordially invited to do so, and to make it known.
Opinions & Words of Caution
Aficionados of South/South-West Asian historiography will be well aware that almost any opinion about anything 'historical' in this region is keenly contested by one group or another, and much the same can be said for almost any statement about signs, gestural communication and sign language of deaf people. The annotations given with references below are intended to be informative, but should never be taken as dogmatic or final statements. Among this modest amount of documentable data (and hopefully among much more that will be discovered and added), almost everything remains to be filled in, thickened up, and more ably expounded. Reports by foreign observers, whether travellers, colonial ethnographers or missionary teachers, must of course be appraised against the background of their times and possible preconceptions, so far as these can be known. Reports by hearing people about deaf people may need similar critical examination. We should also consider whether modern agendas and preoccupations may dispose us to concentrate on certain sorts of evidence, perhaps to the neglect of other sorts.
Some modern Deaf South Asians might be unhappy to find that the earlier historical materials contain far more references to mudras, dance gestures, primitive tribal communications, folk-tales poking fun at deaf people, secret signals among criminal groups, missionary proselytism, etc, than to the complex and elegant spatial-kinetic language that they use, know and have helped to develop. Any such uneasiness is regretted - once again, the aim has been inclusiveness. A widely cast net can catch revealing insights in unexpected places, such as the remarks by Thomas Skinner on deaf children whom he noticed in Himalayan villages. Their parents considered these children to be useless idiots; but Skinner saw their "lively and inquisitive" faces, and did not believe it. If they were useless, he wrote, this was not because of any imbecility on the children's side, but arose from "The want of power in the parents to express their wishes in any other way than by speech" (Skinner, 1833, pp. 36-38). The view that 'Deaf people don't have a problem; society has a problem in not knowing Sign', is often thought to have arisen among politicised Deaf people in the USA from the 1970s onward. To find it expressed casually by a Himalayan explorer in the 1830s may challenge some of our own prejudices about the past. Skinner was not 'modern'; he was merely thoughtful, as some people have been in every age.
Women. Some Deaf Women will be unhappy to find that 'their' history is poorly represented by comparison with that of deaf men. This deficiency is not deliberate - it merely reflects a gender bias in the material found so far, and perhaps the subordinate position of women in most earlier times and places. No documentation appears of women's traditional secret codes, of which some oral reports continue to the 1990s. However, it is interesting that the earliest record found of formal teaching of a deaf child reported a situation in the 1830s where this girl, "Gunga", was taught by hearing women, integrated in an orphanage school at Calcutta, with some signing (Chapman, 1839). A more detailed report from the 1880s showed another woman teaching "Ellen" at Chopra, with signs developed as they went along and apparently achieving some depth (Baumann, 1886). Sign was the main teaching and social medium of Miss Swainson's school at Palamcottah in its first decade at least (Ammal, 1909; Swainson, 1906, 1914), whereas the male founders of deaf schools used exclusively oral methods soon after starting. Occasional glimpses of the lives of deaf girls boarding at the Palamcottah school, e.g. Editorial (1931) and Morgan (1931), show that some had impressive leadership skills and a willingness to engage in public service. It is hard to imagine that they all 'disappeared' in adult life.
As already indicated above, this bibliography cannot and does not pretend to be a work of textual criticism, nor of specialised modern linguistics; yet a few words of caution must be borrowed from those disciplines. Translations listed below have almost always been made by very capable and widely educated scholars and lexicographers, who have done the best they could with the often difficult texts available to them. We owe them a large debt of gratitude - while recognising that hardly any had specialised modern knowledge on deafness, signing and the particular interests with which this bibliography is concerned. One result is that they normally used terms such as "sign language" in a non-technical way, e.g. to cover any form of intentional communication using gestures and body movements. Such usage may still be quite legitimate in the context of a translation for non-technical readers; but it does suggest that any such translations should be treated with considerable caution, when it comes to using them as evidence in modern debates. For example, Ananda Coomaraswamy's statements about "sign language", dated 1928, cannot be transposed directly into a post-1970s linguistic debate without considering carefully the sense in which he was likely to have been using that term and the evidence he advanced for his statements.
The potential problems may further be illustrated from Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra, of which four translations are listed below and examples shown of the "Sixty-Four Arts". There are slight differences in the numbering of the Sixty-Four, and rather greater differences in translations of some of them. This could arise partly from differences in the manuscripts used. It is apparent also that some translators have not differentiated ancient commentaries from original texts, while others have kept the commentaries separate, or omitted them. Skill No. 45 (aksharamushtikakathana) is translated in the following ways. Daniélou: "Sign language Utilizing the mudrA, or symbolic gestures of the theater." Upadhyaya: "The art of understanding writing in cipher, and the writing of words in a peculiar way." Burton & Arbuthnot (their No. 44 = others' No. 45) "The art of understanding writing in cypher, and the writing of words in a peculiar way." Sinha: "Code breaking and a knowledge of ciphers." The exposition by Ganguly (1962, pp. 168-171) makes clear that the divergence of interpretations dates from long ago. Another skill from a different but to some extent parallel list is given by Mookerji (see annotation below) as: "VividhAsana-mudrAbhiH devatA-toshaNam, 'propitiating deities by worship in different postures and by different mudrAs or dispositions of fingers'." That has some similarity to the commentary on Daniélou's No. 45, while being quite distant from 'cyphering' or 'code breaking'.
The point is that in a modern linguistic debate about Sign Language in South Asia, one cannot safely quote Daniélou's "sign language" as one of the Sixty-Four Arts of Indian antiquity without also indicating that the meaning may be significantly different from the way it would be understood by modern linguists. Yet it would also be a mistake to be too hastily dismissive. On the positive side, we might look at the statements by La Meri (1941) about using hasta-mudras to communicate effectively with Tamil colleagues. Perhaps some artistic hyperbole may be suspected; yet La Meri was a highly skilled and knowledgeable performer and communicator. Having claimed that "The hand-language is as complete and expressive as any spoken language" (this was two decades before Stokoe's studies opened up the same battle for Deaf Sign as real and complete languages...), La Meri went on to give examples of its versatility. Her claims, clearly based on experience, cannot be dismissed without the presentation of clear, contrary evidence.
Caution is also required when interpreting earlier documents that mention "deaf", "mute", or "deaf-mute" people. The underlying terms in Sanskrit, Tamil or other languages often have a spread of meanings, from which the translator must choose one that seems appropriate in the given context. The 'spread' of meaning may continue later, as in the example of Kumaraguruparar (b. 1628, d. 1688), a notable Tamil poet. He reportedly had what might now be called some delay of language development in early childhood, possibly associated with a defect of the vocal apparatus. Some later references give him as "dumb" or "born dumb"; other writers then 'spread' the condition to become "deaf and dumb"; and the boy is said to have been "cured" of his condition when taken to a shrine of Murukan at Tiruchchendur at the age of five, and to have immediately uttered a poem of praise to the deity. Similar confusion of meaning occurs in versions of the legend of Murukan's own rebirth as a dumb (but probably not deaf) child; see Dessigane et al. (1960) and Taylor (1835). The religious poetry of Kumaraguruparar is still in daily use by devotees of Murukan (see Arunachalam, below). (Over the centuries, some conflation might have occurred between their stories of muteness).
Matters involving or requiring religious belief should of course be treated with due respect, and there is certainly no historical or scientific method by which any historically distant speech delay, muteness, deafness or cure can convincingly be proved or disproved. The point is that some linguistic evidence does exist of a spread of meaning involving words such as "deaf" and "mute". This suggests that care should be taken when reading and interpreting these sorts of historical text. This point, and more detailed discussions of it, cannot be repeated in every annotation given below; but it probably should be!
Rich Diversity and Illumination. Broadly speaking, the range of historical evidence suggests that humankind has discovered many ways and motivations for communicating by means other than speech, and that South / South-West Asian communities and societies have been particularly rich in the development and proliferation of such alternatives through several millennia. Records of these activities come down to us not for our approval or disapproval - none of the historical material obliges anyone now to adopt any particular position, belief, commitment or outcome - but they do help us to construct some knowledge of what happened in the past. Such knowledge may give perspective to the present situation, and may suggest some long-term trends.
Errors & Omissions. There are sure to be many omissions from the list - the compiler would be glad to hear of further historical items having direct pertinence to signing and to the lives and activities of deaf people, and also of any errors in what follows.
Square brackets [ ] have been used below (i) where data is believed to have some uncertainty about it; and (ii) to indicate this compiler's insertions of explanatory words in a direct quotation; (iii) to indicate that material has been omitted during a quotation (sometimes also shown by dots: ... ).
References
[1] Jonathan RÉE (1999) I See A Voice. A philosophical history of language, deafness and the senses. London: HarperCollins. p. 314.
[2] Nirmal Ruprail & K.G. Tyagi (1987) Index to Indian Periodicals, Sociology and Psychology (1886-1970), pp. 209-210. New Delhi: National Social Science Documentation Centre. (The single relevant item is listed below: BANERJEE, 1928).
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Comments on earlier versions, or suggestions of further modern materials, were received with cordial appreciation from: Anil Rao; Arun C. Rao; Mary Plackett (RNID); Ulrike Zeshan; Christoffel Blindenmission. The range of materials could not have been achieved without access to the library resources of the Universities of Birmingham, Bristol, London and Oxford, and in particular the Indian Institute Library (Bodleian Library, Oxford) and the library of the Royal National Institute for the Deaf.
Any communication may kindly be sent to: M. Miles or to:
M. Miles, 4 Princethorpe Rd, Birmingham B29 5PX, UK.