Signs and their development in monastic environments:
From the rule of silence in early Christian congregations to the emergence of sign
language communication in monasteries today (Language: English)
Since the beginning of the 6th century Christian monasteries had a significant impact on the
development of science and education They also prove to be a fascinating area of research
with respect to the evolution of signed communication systems and signed languages. Studies
in this field lead to a better understanding of the monastic impact on the development of deaf
education (Villwock, 2011, 2012a, 2012b).
For centuries signs have played a major role in the culture of Christian monasteries. The
monastic signs were developed as an alternative communication system to the spoken
modality of language, which was thought to be a root of sins and represent the abandonment
from the cloistral ideal (Bruce, 2007).
So far, there is no data to answer the question of an exact time point for the first usage of
signs as a way of communication in monastic congregations. Nonverbal signs were already
known in pre-Christian time, for example in the Egyptian, Roman and Greek societies.
In the monastic context, signs were used as a substitute for spoken language. The monks or
nuns were hearing - with a few exceptions - but had taken a vow of silence, which was only to
be broken on certain dates or times of the day. There is evidence for numerous different sign
systems in the diverging Christian orders. Some of them were documented in the so-called
signa-lists. These lists contain descriptions of signs for religious purposes as well as those for
daily life in specific monasteries (Fischer, 1996). Although the rule of silence has lost its
strictness today, in some orders these signs are still in use.
Especially the signs of the Cistercian order are very well documented (Barakat, 1975) and
grant a precious opportunity to analyze the features of signed communication.
An extraordinarily interesting research question for the academic area of sign language
studies is the possibility of a connection between the signs of the congregations and the
monasteries as environment of deaf education: Were the deaf children taught by using signs?
This and related questions lead to further discussions in the field of historical linguistics.
Despite the fact that final evidence for the existence of language borrowing between the
monastic sign systems and signed languages of the deaf has not been found yet, it would be
highly recommendable to investigate this possibility thoroughly.
The present study is the first to not only focus on the historical perspective, but also to take
the role of monasteries nowadays concerning the usage of signed languages into
consideration. Furthermore, it differentiates between various orders and their characteristics –
an important aspect which has been neglected in previous studies. In this context, the study
will also tackle the question whether the monastic impact on sign language development and
usage can be estimated to be as positive as that on deaf education (Villwock, 2011, 2012a). References
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