October 9th is Hangul-nal, holiday for celebrating the Korean alphabet. We appreciate the convenience of Hangul. It is a good thing to be able to use our language and letters freely. However in this world, there are some people who use a different style of Hangul. This is story about the deaf, who are hearing impaired people. Their language is ‘sign language’. Maybe you have heard about sign language through TV programs or movies. People know what sign language is, but they don’t know where sign language comes from. If we know about origin of sign language, we can understand them more deeply.
 
A finger letter
A finger letter evaluates a finger symbol and a letter symbol equally. Finger letters for deaf was first used in 1620 by Bonet, who was an educator for the deaf in Spain. He originated a finger letter to twenty two letters and applied them to educate the deaf. This method is practically used by De Lepe, who was an educator for deaf in France. In addition, Gallerdet, the first American educator for the deaf learned this at deaf school in Paris. The finger letter system, which is introduced by Gallerdet, is known as American finger letters.
First origination of Hangul finger letter in Korea is by Yoon Beak Won, who was principle of national Seoul blind school, after Independence of Korea. This Hangul finger letter is practically used at school education for deaf widely. A finger letter is one of the expressions to language and recently, the worth of this among educators for deaf is accepted very positively.
 
Natural sign language
Before using the systematic sign language of finger letters, the deaf communicated with their hands. This hand language is called natural sign language. This contributes to origination and development of systematic sign language, but using words are limited and expression is too self- concentrated and arbitrary so this has a lot of demerits.
 
Sign language Education in Korea
In Korea, Mrs. Hall, who was an America Christian missionary, started education for the deaf in 1909, in Pyeongyang. In the era under the colonial administration of Japan, Jea-saeng-won, which is the institution under the Japanese Government General of Korea, did the special education for the deaf and blind with relief for poor handicapped people. In this education for the deaf was Japanese sign language. Japanese did the annihilation of Korean language policy even at education of sign language for deaf. But, Yoon Beak brought it back after independence. This fact is very important in the history of Korean deaf education. A finger letter is a finger sign, which is one-to-one correspondence with consonant and vowel of language, so it can transfer correct style of writing and can help improvement of writing and reading skills of deaf.
Deaf schools in Korea are more common these days, though many are private. Deaf schools emphasis education of lip reading but many schools just teach sign language to their students. There are some delays of systematic education of sign language so the level of education delays of the deaf increase. The sign language is primary communication measure for the deaf. Therefore, the development and systematization of sign language is urgent study problem in Korea.
 
Although we still have long way to go to settle a systematic sign language, we have achieved significance improvements over the course of history. If you go abroad, and can’t meet people who speak Korean, you’ll have a tough time. That’s the point why we have to have an interest in sign language and just try to communicate with them. They are not strange; they just use different language with from us.
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