[Slling-l] Veditz considered SL to be universal?

[Siglinde Pape]

Hello,

I recently found this statement about G. W. Veditz's discourse on the
Preservation of Sign Language:
"Veditz, like most educated people of his day, believed that sign language
used was universal - that is, that there was one sign language,
intelligible all over the world." (
https://peopleoftheeye.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/people-of-the-eye-what-does-that-mean
/)
Do you have any material that could corroborate this? (for Veditz or other
people of that time)

In this same film (at 1:40 <https://youtu.be/XITbj3NTLUQ?t=1m40s>) does
Veditz says, as Carol Padden translated it: "They [= the French Deaf] loved
him [= de l'Épée] because he was their first teacher. But they loved him
more for being the father and inventor [*sic*] of *their* beautiful sign
language."? Or is it rather an inclusive pronoun that we could translate as
"our" then?

(Maybe we should just not stick to words - after all, some people will tell
you that a language is no more than a dialect with an army and a navy...
Yet for many SL a common origin or a language contact situation can not
necessarily be assumed. Moreover I am more curious here about the
representation people have then about the linguistic truth itself.)

So I would be interested in facts showing when the switch was operated
within the Deaf community from considering the different SL as local
variants of a presumably universal SL to really different sign languages.
Any evidences or personal opinions to share?

Siglinde  P a p e

_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Doctorante en sciences du langage
Université Blaise Pascal / EA999
Laboratoire de Recherche sur le Langage
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siglinde.pape at univ-bpclermont.fr
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deaf E-space for Signed Collaboration Abroad on
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*The E-SCALE project proposes an online learning environment aimed at Deaf
learners who wish to improve their written English and ASL (American Sign
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