[New Entry by Philippe Schlenker, Jeremy Kuhn, and Jonathan Lamberton on September 9, 2024.]
Sign languages (in the plural: there are many) arise naturally as soon as groups of deaf people have to communicate with each other. Sign languages became institutionally established starting in the late eighteenth century, when schools using sign languages were founded in France, and spread across different countries, gradually leading to a golden age of Deaf culture (we capitalize Deaf when talking about members of a cultural group, and use deaf for the audiological status). This came to a partial halt in 1880, when the…

Read the full article which is published on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (external link)