left turn - living in dc near gallaudet university, and being the infinitely curious person i am, i have known several deaf people, and learned asl a while back. i have spent a great deal of time speaking to my share of deaf peoplevia instant messaging over the years. something you will hear from me, but from no one else ever about deaf people since our society is a big fat box of bull$#!& at the moment - asl, and most sign languages, are at best incomplete, and are limited in scope. presently the communication of perspectives and concepts capable in asl are no where near approaching what regular english speakers, and speakers of most languages, are capable of. this leads to most deaf people just straight up not understanding many things when communicating. i spoke at great length with the then vice president of the student body of gallaudet for months regarding this subject as communication and perspective is something that fascinates me. her main focus in life is communication, and the issues i am speaking of now - the vast limitations of asl and other sign languages. there is a reason deaf people remain within the deaf community, for the most part, and most people don't really know anyone deaf - the communication system they have been given is comparatively lacking. asl and other languages are clearly fine for basic communication, but nowhere near the scope of what people with hearing have. this also lends deaf people, from what i have seen, to be somewhat more "doing" oriented when it comes to relationships and socialization, meaning movement and action are more relevant to their lives, so they may show people by doing and acting more than people who can speak, sometimes. anyhow, i am sure much of what i say may be misinterpreted, but you really can't understand what it is like until you are a part of the community, and i can tell you there is nothing stranger than being around large groups of people that you know have no concept of certain things. seeing how hearing people interact with them, and how hearing people who have to deal with deaf people act around deaf people, and how strikingly different it is due to the huge differences in perspective and understanding. fascinating in my opinion, but the reality is ugly, in terms of how inferior the sign languages are, and thus it creates situations no one is ever willing to touch. either you are deaf or you are hearing, and hearing people cannot ever claim asl is inferior, our pc mothering insane society does not allow anyone to do anything like that, and deaf people do not know anything is lacking really, thus the system remains. people who lose their hearing over time or go deaf from an accident, who were speaking as a child and learned to communicate verbally, communicate differently than children who grew up non hearing. the woman i knew lost her hearing as a child, but developed hearing, but lost her hearing completely during her developmental stages, this she sort of walks that line, and has more insight into both than most deaf people. I'm done rambling. it is what it is, and everything changes in time. live and let live.