What will happen to signed languages?

Great news: Deaf children are getting cochlear implants that can help them hear. But this has an unintended consequence: signed languages, already endangered, are getting pushed closer to extinction.

Until the past five years or so, cochlear implants were considered risky for young children. Some teachers of the deaf recommended that parents wait and let the child decide whether to get implants or use sign language. But such advice comes with a cost: A child who waits too long to hear might never become proficient in oral language. As scientific evidence accrues that children learn spoken language better if implanted before age 3, the recommendation to wait has faded.

Still, some experts advocate learning sign language even if children receive implants. Learning sign language is a safeguard that allows a young child to develop communication skills prior to receiving the implant. And sign language is there if, for any reason, the implants do not help a child sufficiently.

The pragmatist in me thinks that maybe this isn’t that serious. Signed languages, while languages in their own right, are still sort of a solution to a problem. If everyone could suddenly hear, that would be such a great thing that it might be worth the loss of ASL, Auslan, BSL, and other signed languages.

But Linguist Me laments the possible demise of yet another natural language, with all the variety and human ingenuity encoded in it. Keep in mind that Auslan, the main signed language used in Australia, has only about 7,000 speakers, far fewer than has been thought. That means it may already be endangered. And if fewer and fewer people are learning and using it, this has some serious implications for the Deaf community.

I don’t know much about the technology of cochlear implants, but I can’t imagine that they have a 100 percent success rate. If they don’t work for someone, and signed languages die out, will that person just be SOL?