Charles-Michel de l'Epée

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Charles-Michel de l'Epée

Abbé Charles-Michel de l'Epée (born November 25, 1712 in Versailles , † December 23, 1789 in Paris ) was a pioneer of deaf education .

Live and act

Charles-Michel de l'Epée first studied theology. Because he refused a script to condemnation of Jansenism to sign, he was the archbishop of Paris , the consecration denied. He then studied law , but was not admitted in this area until Jacques Bénigne Bossuet , the Bishop of Troyes , ordained him. Since the latter died soon afterwards, the now Abbé de l'Epée returned to Paris, where, due to his philanthropic convictions, he mainly acted as an advocate for the interests of the poorer classes of the population.

In 1760 he was introduced to two deaf sisters of childhood whose tutor, Pére Vanin, had just died. He took the sisters into his home and continued to teach them instead of Vanin. He suspected that the gestures his protégés used among each other directly reflected their ideas. Based on this observation and the idea of ​​a natural education (according to Rousseau ), he used the means in teaching that nature so clearly gave the "deaf and dumb": sign language.

The Abbé de l'Epée, as he is usually known for short, soon planned to bring more deaf children from the surrounding districts off the streets and teach them, and in 1771 he founded the Institution Nationale des Sourds-Muets de Paris . It is usually regarded as the world's first school for pigeons.

Abbé de l'Epée followed Descartes ' view that language is a system of signs that exist outside of humans. It is therefore possible to arbitrarily combine thing and sign in any way, including thing and gesture . Based on this idea, he developed the "natural gesture signs" he observed with additional extensions through grammatical signs, the Langue des signes française , the first French sign language .

While the gesture is based on the nature of the deaf, the writing should lead to the cultural language ( spoken language ) of the hearing. The finger alphabet (l'alphabet manuel) is used as an aid for learning the letters , and later also for dictating proper names . The students thought and expressed themselves in this language. As a result, they achieved a high level of knowledge, but were still dependent on intermediaries when dealing with hearing people.

In 1776 de l'Epée published Institution des sourds-muets par la voie des signes méthodiques and in 1784 La véritable manière d'instruire les sourds et muets, confirmée par une longue expérience , and began a general lexicon of signs that was written by his successor, Abbé Sicard , was accomplished. (See history of sign languages ).

Two years after his death, the National Assembly decreed his inclusion in the list of “benefactors of humanity” and state support for the school he founded. In 1838 a bronze bust was erected over his grave in the church of Saint-Roch in Paris.

rating

Statue in Versailles

In his targeted efforts, the Abbé de l'Epée, knowingly or unknowingly, disregarded the fact that the actual sign language, as it was used by the "deaf and mute" on the streets of Paris, had a completely different structure, which he later learned from his former student Pierre Desloges in his Scripture from 1779 was accused. It can be assumed that Abbé de l'Epées “methodical signs” through the addition of grammatical signs and the reference to the French grammar corresponds roughly to what is today understood as spoken language accompanying signs (LBG) in contrast to real sign language .

Nevertheless, his method was far more successful than that of others, for example Jacob Rodrigues Pereira , who much earlier, in 1749, was able to teach a single deaf pupil to speak and present him to the academy in Paris. De l'Epee's methods were later replaced by better, yet remains to him that he and his later Methodenstreit become known "French method" as a teaching system alongside Samuel Heinicke laid in Germany the foundations for a systematic education of the hearing impaired. Since Laurent Clerc was a student and assistant teacher at the Paris National Institute before he went to the USA, de l'Epée also influenced developments in the United States ( see also: History of the Deaf ).

literature

  • The erection of a statue of the Abbé de L'Epée in Versailles . In: Illustrirte Zeitung . No. 23 . J. J. Weber, Leipzig December 2, 1843, p. 353-354 ( books.google.de ).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME L'Epée, Charles-Michel de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Founder of the world's first school for pigeons
DATE OF BIRTH November 25, 1712
PLACE OF BIRTH Versailles
DATE OF DEATH December 23, 1789
Place of death Paris