Melody = ASL

I learned something new today. I never knew that there were significant specifics within music. At my poetry workshop this evening, a fellow poet wrote a piece about Melody with beautiful details. I had the chance to “taste” this sensory that I have/will never fully comprehend. To use Wikipedia, melody is described as, “tune, voice, or line, is a series of linear events or a succession, not a simultaneity as in a chord (see harmony). However, this succession must contain change of some kind and be perceived as a single entity (possibly Gestalt) to be called a melody.” A simple bass is used to promote the music along with background sounds, but it also takes more tools such as melody to make music beautiful and successful. Melody is a part of music that is deep, and a dimension that Deaf people will never experience.

ASL is melody. Simple sign language is just the bass as heard in music. Some may think sign language is enough, but it is not. I always measure interpreters with this, do they have melody? Most of them are CODAs. It is very rare for hearing people to have this quality. Deaf people naturally develop this.

This is what I fear the most for Deaf babies with CI. The “adults” surrounding those Deaf babies are mainly concerned with hearing/speech skills for the child. They want the implanted Deaf baby to learn every mystery of spoken language. Do they truly care for the implanted child to learn the melodies of ASL? This is the core of ASL and to learn ASL is not mere sign language, and to possess this very language is the foundation of life for every Deaf child.