The deaf population of Martha’s Vineyard has fascinated scholars for more than a century since Alexander Graham Bell’s research on the frequent occurrence of deafness there and since Groce’s book on the island’s signing community (Groce, N. E. (1985). Everyone here spoke sign language: Hereditary deafness on Martha’s Vineyard. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.). In Groce’s work, and in that of subsequent scholars, the Vineyard signing community has often been portrayed as remote and outlying, having developed independently of mainland signing communities for roughly 133 years until 1825. We re-examine that interpretation in light of historical, demographic, and genealogical evidence covering the period 1692–2008. We argue that the Vineyard signing community began in Chilmark in 1785, 93 years later than previously thought, and that it had had a brief period of independent development, roughly 40 years, before becoming well connected, through deaf education, to the nascent New England signing community. We consider the implications of the Vineyard community’s history for our understanding of how village signing communities develop.

中文翻译：

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玛莎葡萄园签名社区的历史人口统计


自从亚历山大·格雷厄姆·贝尔 (Alexander Graham Bell) 对当地耳聋频繁发生的研究以及格罗斯 (Groce) 关于岛上手语社区的书 (Groce, NE (1985)) 以来，一个多世纪以来，玛莎葡萄园岛的聋人群体一直让学者们着迷。这里的每个人都说手语：遗传性玛莎葡萄园岛的耳聋，马萨诸塞州剑桥：哈佛大学出版社。）在格罗斯和后来学者的著作中，葡萄园手语社区经常被描述为偏远和边远的地区，在 1825 年之前独立于大陆手语社区发展了大约 133 年。我们根据历史、人口统计重新审视这种解释。 ，以及涵盖 1692 年至 2008 年期间的家谱证据。我们认为，葡萄园手语社区始于 1785 年，比之前认为的晚了 93 年，并且在通过聋人教育与新生的新英格兰建立良好联系之前，它经历了一段短暂的独立发展期，大约 40 年。签名社区。我们考虑葡萄园社区的历史对我们理解村庄签名社区如何发展的影响。