I assume there must be a reason why sign language is superior but I genuinely don’t know why.

  • milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    I’ve heard that because written English is phonetic - meaning it shows how the sounds are (approximately) - then for people who have always been deaf that doesn’t make the same sense, and reading words is a bit like reading a bunch of telephone numbers and remembering what they mean.

    • Gabu@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      I.e. the same as a programming language, which can be easily learned to be read at astounding speed… Also, written English is one of the least phonetic languages you could possibly find.

      • milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        Not really. You can still sound out the phonemes in a programming language. Perhaps if the whole thing were perl memes. And while I agree English orthography is a mess, for “not phonetic” it holds no candle to Chinese.

        Maybe Chinese is a better comparison, I hadn’t thought of that.