Sign Language FAQ
Is there something like a Deaf Culture?
If one looks at the fact that sign language is truly an authenticated language then one must naturally deduct that those who communicates via this vehicle should be grouped together, geographically in security and subsistence, would harmonize as a culture, protecting it with all their power to survive in a world as it is known to them, not unlike any hearing culture would.
To recapitulate, again: specific people with a certain way of life and a specific tongue, in a certain country equals a specific Culture.
Most ingredients of such a grouping naturally would have been borrowed from their hearing countryman's culture. As the English differs from the same English speaking Americans, so does the Deaf differs from hearing and Deaf communities all over the world, each with its unique vocabulary and grammar and one sense that geography most likely has more to do with culture than one would expect.
In the US and its constitutional perceptions Deaf culture is recognized as a culture although not classified on its own but seen as part of a greater disability grouping. This angered the Deaf Community for it sees itself as a proud entity of its own, with its own language and customs, different and yet similar than any other normal hearing group who is classified for example, African Americans or Americans from Italian descent etc.