Languages are the heart of community. Indigenous languages are being taught and reclaimed in order to preserve the cultures they describe. Signed languages (like ASL) knit together Deaf communities in ways that hearing people cannot understand. The ways in which we describe relationships are grounded in the language(s) of our hearts.
How have the languages you communicate with informed your understanding of community?
Los lenguajes son el corazón de la comunidad. Las lenguas indígenas se están comenzando a enseñar y a recuperar para preservar las culturas que describen. El lenguaje de señas une a la comunidad de personas sordas en formas en que las personas oyentes no pueden entender. Las maneras en las que describimos las relaciones se basan en el lenguaje, o lenguajes, de nuestro corazón.
¿Cómo han informado tu comprensión de la comunidad los idiomas en los que te comunicas?
After 12 semesters of Spanish as an adult retired in NC, I could speak and read Spanish pretty well. I taught English as a second language there through the Literacy Council and became part of my adult student’s extended family, but when you leave the community and no longer use the language on a daily basis, you lose the ease of speaking, reading, and writing it. As a speech pathologist, I learned ASL as part of my training, but again lost it through disuse when not involved with those of the deaf community.