Martha’s Vineyard’s Shared Signed Language Heritage SELF-GUIDED AUTO TOUR
The Weald of Kent by Samuel Palmer | Courtesy of The Athenaeum
It’s believed that the hereditary deafness on Martha’s Vineyard (MV) was the product of a gene introduced into the population by immigrants from the County of Kent, England, in the 1600s. Because heredity was not well-understood until the early 19th century, no one could predict if a child would be born Deaf or hearing. Over time, this led to the natural development of an English-influenced signed language that became a shared signed language for Deaf and hearing residents alike. By the mid 1800s the prevalence of deafness on the island was striking. On the mainland, 1 in every 5,730 people was born Deaf, but in Chilmark 1 in 25 and in the village of Squibnocket it was 1 in 4. It’s also believed that MV’s unique signed language influenced the development of American Sign Language (ASL) when students from Martha’s Vineyard attended the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, CT, between 1825 and 1892.
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State Rd. Road-Crew 1910-1914 Courtesy of MV Museum
There are no monuments to Chilmark’s signed language community, no statues, plaques, roadside boulders, or carefully preserved house museums. But traces remain: modest farms and simple dwellings from the 19th and early 20th centuries, when, in Nora Groce’s words, “Everyone here spoke sign language.”*
* Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language, Hereditary Deafness on Martha’s Vineyard by Nora Ellen Groce, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA & London, England