A Grammar of Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT)

Deaf education in the 18th and 19th century

On deaf versus Deaf: It has been common in the field of deaf studies and sign languages to distinguish between ‘deaf’ and ‘Deaf’, where the former refers to the physical condition of not being able to hear, and the latter to the linguistic and cultural minority group of (Deaf) people using sign language. This distinction, however, asks for judgements about whether individuals that are referred to, e.g. deaf children, identify as being Deaf, while the author, more often than not, cannot make these judgements. Moreover, several (deaf) scholars have suggested to move away from this distinction and to only use the more inclusive ‘deaf’ (De Meulder, Murray & McKee 2019). Following Dutch deaf scholars (Cokart et al. 2019) in this matter – since also local customs are important to take into account – this dissertation adheres to this suggestion.

Hardly any documentation could be found on deaf people in the Netherlands or on their language up to the 18^th century. Fortunately, more information is available on deaf children and their use of signs (and speech) from 1790 onwards, as the first Dutch school for the deaf was founded in Groningen by Henri Daniel Guyot at that time (Tijsseling 2014). In this section, we briefly describe the history of the first schools for the deaf in the Netherlands.

In 1755, Charles Michel de l’Epée (1712-1789) founded the first school with classroom-based education for the deaf in Paris. He noticed the signs the deaf children were already using among themselves, and considered this the most natural way of communication for deaf people (Rietveld-van Wingerden 2003). He therefore implemented these ‘natural signs’ in his teaching method, supplemented with invented signs that depicted aspects of the structure of written French (e.g. signs for plural forms), as his goal was to teach the children to read and write French. The use of signs (and sign language) is what quickly became known as the ‘manual method’. The Dutchman Henri Daniel Guyot attended the lessons of De l’Epée in 1784, learned his teaching strategies, and took these with him back to the Netherlands. He founded the first school for the deaf in Groningen in 1790 and also started to use the manual method, adapted to the Dutch language (Rietveld-van Wingerden 2003).

Initially, pupils from outside Groningen stayed with foster families but later, a boarding school was founded with separate houses for boys and girls. The institute was not linked to a specific religion, although Guyot was a Christian preacher and maintained Christian values at his institute. In the weekends, children could attend catechism of various religions, and they had to take a confession of faith when they finished school. The school was named after Guyot (Tijsseling 2014).

The second school for the deaf in the Netherlands was a Catholic one, which opened in 1840 in Sint-Michielsgestel. It was initiated by a pastor, Henricus den Dubbelden (1769-1851), but the children were taught by chaplain Martinus van Beek (1790-1872). Religion played a central role in the curriculum. It was a boarding school as well, with complete separation of boys and girls. Like De l’Epée, van Beek developed a sign system based on spoken Dutch that was used as a teaching method. It should be noted that, contrary to what is often thought, it was this school that practiced the manual method the longest – until 1906 (Tijsseling 2014). We say “contrary to what is often thought”, because, if we jump forward in time, it was also this school which still adhered to the oral method in the second part of the 20^th century, when other schools had already started to use Total Communication (Rietveld-van Wingerden & Tijsseling 2010).

In the Western part of the Netherlands, a third institute opened in 1853, which adopted a different approach: it used spoken language only (the so-called ‘oral method’). The founders of this school in Rotterdam, Alexander Symons (1815-1892) and Machiel Polano (1813-1878), and one of its head teachers David Hirsch (1813-1895), additionally strongly believed that deaf children would benefit from being integrated in society by living with hearing families – not least because living with hearing people would urge the children to speak, whereas boarding houses would leave some freedom for signing. The pupils who attended this school were therefore placed in hearing foster families (Rietveld-van Wingerden 2003; Rietveld-van Wingerden & Tijsseling 2010).

During the 19^th century, an international discussion had evolved around the question whether deaf children should be educated through the oral or the manual method. The former, often associated with Johann Conrad Amman (1669-1724) in the Netherlands and with Samuel Heinicke (1727-1790) in Germany, focused strictly on education through spoken language and on speech itself, while the latter focused on education through a sign system. Symons, Polano and Hirsch actively promoted the oral method, and the school had public lessons in which visitors were allowed to observe this teaching method. Several institutes abroad became inspired by the oral method and started using this in their schools as well, among which was the school for the deaf Guilio Tarra in Milan. The institute in Milan would become a role model for other Italian schools, and this was one of the main reasons why in 1880, the Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf was held in Milan, where it was decided that every deaf school should henceforth use the oral method (Rietveld-van Wingerden & Tijsseling 2010).

By now, or, to be precise, in 1864, so even before this infamous congress, the first institute in Groningen had also changed to the oral method. The fourth institute, the Effatha institute, used the oral method from the start, inspired by the congress in Milan. It opened doors in 1891 in Leiden and aimed specifically at an education and upbringing in one of the Protestant denominations in the Netherlands, the Gereformeerde Kerk, which has a Calvinist tradition. Originally, it was planned to host the children with foster families instead of in a boarding house, but since the first group of registered children was rather small, these first four children lived with the head teacher and his wife. The school later became residential after all. In 1899, the school moved to Dordrecht and later to Voorburg (Rietveld-van Wingerden & Tijsseling 2010).

The fifth school was founded in Amsterdam in 1910 by an ear doctor named Hendrik Burger (1864-1957). He noticed that the existing schools only educated children from 6 years and older, whereas other countries started with younger children, and he wanted to follow this latter approach. This was an important reason for making this school a day school and not a residential one; if the children could still live at home, the parents would be motivated to enroll them at a younger age. At that time, deaf children registered at the other schools usually started education at the age of 6, whereas this school eventually enrolled children from the age of 3. It was a non-denominational school, and children from all religious backgrounds were welcome (Rietveld-van Wingerden & Tijsseling 2010). In Figure 1.1, the five schools, as they were located in the early 20^th century, are shown:

Figure 1.1. The locations of the five schools for the deaf in the early 20^th century. (© Dutch Sign Centre; reprinted with permission).

The first signs in NGT

It is likely that the origin of NGT lies at the first schools for the deaf, since the transmission of a sign language generally happens among deaf children themselves, where older children function as role-models for younger children (Fortgens 1991). A relevant question for the emergence and development of NGT is therefore: How strict were these schools in adhering to the oral method after 1906? According to the website from the Guyot school in Groningen and to the recounts of elderly deaf people, signs and fingerspelling were never completely absent from this institute, even during the period in which the usage of signs at schools was faced with oppression. In addition, letters were found that prove that deaf people came together after they left school, especially in the big cities, and started to form a community (Tijsseling 2014: 17). It is likely that within these local communities, sign language was used, and at least could be transmitted. There are also anecdotes from other schools that indicate that signs were not completely abandoned. Moreover, Tervoort’s research (see Section 1.4) has shown that children in the Sint-Michielsgestel residential school were certainly signing, for example during the breaks and in the dormitories. See also the movie “Niet vanzelfsprekend”.