The Pronunciation of Deaf-mutes who have been Taught to Articulate

Abstract

IN NATURE (vol. xxv. p. 72) it is reported that at the last meeting of the French Academy M. Hément made some observations to show that deaf-mutes who have been taught to articulate speak with the accent of their native district. This curious circumstance, which was contested by M. Blanchard, has already been recorded. One case is given in an old number of the Philosophical Transactions, No. 312. About the age of seventeen a young man, a congenital deaf-mute, was twice attacked by fever. “Some weeks after recovery he perceived a motion of some kind in his brain, which was very uneasy to him, and afterwards he began to hear, and, in process of time, to understand speech. This naturally disposed him to imitate what he heard, and to attempt to speak. The servants were much annoyed to hear him. He was not distinctly understood, however, for some weeks; but is now understood tolerably well. But what is singular is that he retains the Highland accent, just as Highlanders do who are advanced to his age before they begin to learn the English tongue. He cannot speak any Erse or Irish, for it was in the Lowlands he first heard and spoke.” The curious circumstance of his possession of the Highland accent is confirmed by the testimony of similar phenomena in the deaf and dumb schools of Spain. “One fact,” says Ticknor, “I witnessed, and knew therefore personally, which is extremely curious. Not one of the pupils, of course, can ever have heard a human sound, and all their knowledge and practice in speaking must come from their imitation of the visible mechanical movement of the lips and other organs of enunciation by their teachers, who were all Castilians, yet each speaks clearly and decidedly, and with the accent of the province from which he comes, so that I could instantly distinguish the Catalonians and Biscayans and Castilians, whilst others, more practised in Spanish, felt the Malagan and Andalusian tones” (“Life and Journals of George of Ticknor,” vol. i. p. 196, London, 1876). A similar case has been mentioned to me by Mr. J. J. Alley of Manchester. E. R. became deaf and dumb at a very early age, and did not talk until he was about seventeen, when he was taught articulation by Mr. Alley. He speaks with the accent of his native county of Stafford. These facts are cited in my paper on “The Education of the Deaf and Dumb,” in the “Companion to the Almanac” for 1880.