Introduction

Deaf people in Spain during the second half of the eighteenth century occupied a curious position. Discursively, they appeared in selected late-eighteenth-century Spanish debates surrounding the nature of language, the relationship of language to thought and the potential for humanity to perfect itself using reason. The notion of visuality – in both practical and figurative terms – was conspicuously at the root of these discussions. Figuratively, and dating from the origins of deaf education in early sixteenth-century Spain, the deaf were becoming more visible as a group. A handful of educators, philosophers, linguists and scholars initiated discussions exploring both the potential education of the deaf and also what the education of this group might reveal about human language and thought more universally speaking. Yet the visible world was also an important part of the education of the deaf student in practical terms. Such instruction –although overwhelmingly geared toward the use of spoken language – itself relied on a number of visual tools, the most recognizable being the Spanish Manual Alphabet, in which letters of the spoken/written alphabet were rendered on individual hands to aid in communicating with the deaf student.