Abbé Charles-Michel de l'Épée, b. in Versailles, 25 November 1712; d. in Paris, 23 December 1789 was a philanthropic Jansenist priest in 18th century France who has become known as the 'father of the deaf'. November 25 is the 329th (in leap years the 330th) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Events Treaty of Aargau signed between Catholic and Protestants. ... Versailles, formerly the capital city of the kingdom of France, is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and is still an important administrative and judicial center. ... December 23 is the 357th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (358th in leap years). ... 1789 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... The Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... Versailles, formerly the capital city of the kingdom of France, is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and is still an important administrative and judicial center. ... November 25 is the 329th (in leap years the 330th) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Events Treaty of Aargau signed between Catholic and Protestants. ... The Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... December 23 is the 357th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (358th in leap years). ... 1789 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Philanthropy involves the donation or granting of money to various worthy charitable causes. ... Jansenism was a branch of Christian philosophy founded by Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638), a Flemish theologian. ... Roman Catholic priest LCDR Allen R. Kuss (USN) aboard USS Enterprise A priest or priestess is a holy man or woman who takes an officiating role in worship of any religion, with the distinguishing characteristic of offering sacrifices. ... (17th century - 18th century - 19th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800. ...

Overview

Born to a wealthy family in Versailles, the seat of political power in what was then the most powerful kingdom of Europe, Épée was a practising Catholic priest for 25 years. His Jansenist sympathies were viewed with hostility at the time by the Roman Catholic church and the French royal government, and he was eventually divested of his priestly duties. Versailles, formerly the capital city of the kingdom of France, is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and is still an important administrative and judicial center. ... This article is about the sacrament. ... Jansenism was a branch of Christian philosophy founded by Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638), a Flemish theologian. ... The Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination of Christianity with over one billion members. ... Louis XV King of France and Navarre Louis XV (February 15, 1710 - May 10, 1774), called the Well-Beloved (French: le Bien-Aimé), was king of France from 1715 to 1774. ...

He turned his attention toward the vibrant deaf community in Paris, and sometime in the 1750s he founded a shelter for the deaf, which he ran with his own private income. In line with emerging philosophical thought, Épée came to believe that deaf people were capable of language. Motivated by the desire that deaf people should be able to receive the sacraments and thus avoid going to hell, he began to develop a system of instruction of the French language and religion. In the early 1760s his shelter became the world's first free school for the deaf. This article needs to be wikified. ... The Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... Events and Trends Scientific navigation is developed. ... The word deaf, can have very different meanings based on the background of the person speaking or the context in which the word is used. ... A sacrament is a Christian rite that mediates, in the sense of being a visible symbol or manifestation of invisible divine grace. ... Events and Trends King George III ascends the British throne in 1760. ...

Though his focus was on religious education, his pubic advocacy and development of "Signed French" enabled deaf people to legally defend themselves in court for the first time. His methods of education have also spread around the world, and the Abbé de l'Épée is seen today as one of the founding fathers of deaf education.

Abbé de l'Épée died at the beginning of the French Revolution (1789). Two years later the National Assembly recognised him as a "Benefactor of Humanity", and declared that deaf people had rights according to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. In 1799 the "Institution Nationale des Sourds-Muets à Paris" that Épée had founded began to receive government funding. The period of the French Revolution in the history of France covers the years between 1789 and 1799, in which democrats and republicans overthrew the absolute monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church was forced to undergo radical restructuring. ... 1789 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... The National Assembly is the name of either a legislature, or the lower house of a bicameral legislature in some countries. ... Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, (French: La Déclaration des Droits de lHomme et du citoyen), is one of the fundamental documents of the French Revolution, defining a set of individual rights (and collective... 1799 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ...

Épée's tomb is in the Saint Roch church in Paris. Saint Roch (Latin: Rochus; Italian: Rocco; Spanish: Roque; c. ...

The Instructional Method of Signs

His educational method emphasised using gestures or hand-signs, based on the principle that "the education of deaf mutes must teach them through the eye what other people acquire through the ear". He recognised that the deaf community had their own language (now known as Old French Sign Language) and advised his (hearing) teachers to learn it so as to be able to use it for instruction. However, he viewed their language as inferior, and intended to "refine" or adapt the grammar of the sign language to conform to the grammar of French, and eventually become a word-for-word representation ('Signed French'). To this end he combined these signs with a two-handed manual alphabet, though he was more interested in building French words from signs representing morphemes or Latin roots. Old French Sign Language was the language of the Deaf community in Paris in the 18th century. ... A sign language (also signed language) is a language which uses gestures instead of sound to convey meaning - combining handshapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, facial expressions and lip-patterns. ... A manual alphabet is a system of representing all the letters of an alphabet, using only the hands. ... In Linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in a given language. ...

Épée, to a lesser degree, also used speech and lip-reading with his pupils.

Educational legacy

What distinguished Épée from educators of the deaf before him, and ensured his place in history, is that he allowed his methods and classrooms to be available to the public and other educators. As a result of his openness, his methods would become so influential that their mark is still apparent in deaf education today (see Manually Coded English for modern examples of his approach). Épée also established teacher-training programs for foreigners who would take his methods back to their countries, and who established numerous deaf schools around the world. Laurent Clerc, a deaf pupil of the Paris school, went on to co-found the first school for the deaf in North America and took with him many signs that are now part of modern American Sign Language, among them the signs of the ASL alphabet (though Épée himself never used it &mdash see below). Laurent Clerc (born Louis Laurent Marie Clerc) was born December 26, 1785 in La Balme les Grottes, department of Isere, France, a village on the northeaster edge of Lyon. ... American Sign Language is the dominant sign language in the United States, anglophone Canada and parts of Mexico. ... The American Sign Language alphabet is a manual alphabet to complement the vocabulary of American Sign Language when spelling individual letters of a word is the preferred or only option. ...

Deaf schools in Germany and England that were contemporaries of the Abbé de l'Épée's Paris School used an 'oralist' approach emphasising speech and lip-reading in contrast to his belief in 'manualism'. The oralism vs. manualism debate still rages to this day. Oralism is sometimes called the 'German method' and manualism and the 'French method' in reference to those times. Oralism is a philosophy of deaf education which asserts that instruction of students should primarily or exclusively be though the use of lip reading and spoken language (usually along with speech therapy). ... Manualism is a philosophy of deaf education that maintains that the best way for deaf students to acquire language and knowledge is with the use of a language produced manually and received visually, in other words a sign languge. ...

The Paris school still exists, though it now uses French Sign Language in class rather than Épée's methodical signs. Located in rue Saint-Jacques in Paris, it is one of four national Deaf schools - the others being in Metz, Chambéry and Bordeaux. French Sign Language (Langue des Signes Français or LSF) is the language of the deaf in the nation of France. ...

Myths about Épée

Even today Épée is commonly described as the inventor of Sign Language, or as having 'taught the deaf to sign'. In fact he was taught to sign by the deaf. He is also wrongly cited as the inventor of the one-handed manual alphabet. Épée had actually been quite disdainful of the advocates of fingerspelling, and had himself used a different (two-handed) alphabet in instances where he felt it necessary to use one. A sign language (also signed language) is a language which uses gestures instead of sound to convey meaning - combining handshapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, facial expressions and lip-patterns. ... A manual alphabet is a system of representing all the letters of an alphabet, using only the hands. ... A manual alphabet is a system of representing all the letters of an alphabet, using only the hands. ...

Published works

• (1776) Institution des sourds-muets par la voie des signes méthodiques
• (1794) La véritable manière d'instruire les sourds et muets, confirmée par une longue expérience (published posthumously)
• He also began a Dictionnaire général des signes, which was completed by his apprentice, the Abbé Sicard.