 |
 |
. 3000 years of Deaf History resources open online: "Deaf People, Sign Language & Communication, in Ottoman & Modern Turkey: observations and excerpts from 1300 to 2008, from sources in English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin and Turkish, with introduction and some annotation" is now open online, at: www.independentliving.org/miles200907.html and .pdf I have also just revised the shorter annotated bibliog, "Hittite Deaf Men in the 13th Century BC", within the context of ancient and medieval evidence of deaf people in the Middle East, at: www.independentliving.org/docs7/miles200809.html and .pdf In the past 12 years I was collecting historical evidence on deaf people and sign language at Istanbul and more widely in the Ottoman empire, and in 20th century Turkey, in several European languages. During the past year, more sources from Turkish were added. It has also been stimulating and informative to correspond with Ezgi Dikici, whose MA thesis, giving useful coverage of deaf people in Turkish history, became available on the web. I decided to put the whole collection of Ottoman textual evidence online, full text (subject to copyright limits for the 20th century), in date order, with introduction and annotation. More than 250 sources are cited and quoted. The normal academic practice would have been to 'get a book out of it'. But publishers do not like to print a book for sale and then find the entire contents have been made freely available! Better just to put the materials online, where millions can find them if they wish, and maybe a few hundred will actually study them, and make up their own minds, write their own articles, or whatever they wish. To improve access, the webmaster has linked up a 'Quick Tour', where readers can hop through a sample of interesting text over several centuries, and then decide whether they want to dive in deeper. Some URLs also appear of graphics related to deaf people in the Ottoman era. Researchers will of course skim through the whole collection, and could probably think of many ways to improve the annotations. I hope too that teachers at various levels will have a dip in the sea of texts, and will pick out some that their students can read and discuss. There are remarkable historical treasures in Turkey, for the Deaf World and its history, and historical sign linguistics. The archaeological evidence of Hittite Deaf men in ancient Anatolia (Turkey) tells of probably the earliest deaf people functioning as a team. How did those Hittite Deaf people communicate with one another -- (i) by writing little notes in cuneiform on soft clay tablets? (ii) by training themselves to wiggle their ears in a secret code? (iii) by raising their hands and arms to make signs, along with nodding their heads with eye movements and facial signals? The cuneiform texts mentioning Deaf Hittites have not yet provided an answer to this question – but thousands more are being dug up and deciphered, which may eventually shed more light on the evidence already in hand! Respectfully submitted… M. Miles West Midlands, UK ________________End of message________________ This Disability-Research Discussion list is managed by the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds (www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies). Enquiries about list administration should be sent to [log in to unmask] Archives and tools are located at: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html You can VIEW, POST, JOIN and LEAVE the list by logging in to this web page.