HITTITE DEAF MEN IN THE 13th CENTURY BC: introductory notes with annotated bibliography

1.1 The following references and annotations are collected to facilitate the emergence of Hittite Deaf people from the 13th Century BC, in the modern literature of Deaf History. The present work is tentative, and welcomes critical comment and corrections. (A more formal article in English is likely to be published later). The work is reaching a critical stage of development, as it becomes clear that there were not merely isolated references to a ‘deaf man’ in the Hittite royal palaces and temples. There are several distinct references to a ‘chief deaf man’ or ‘supervisor of deaf men’. The obvious inference is that deaf men were working as an organised group, with various roles and duties allocated to them. How did they communicate with one another? Modern Deaf people, and linguistic researchers, will not be slow to supply an answer. Yet up to now, the scholars of Hittitology, studying cuneiform script on clay tablets, have not published anything that looks like a reference to Deaf people’s formal Sign Language. However, there is evidence of ordinary gestures and physical signals in use by hearing people in the Hittite palaces and temples, of which a few examples are collected below in section 4.0 ‘Sampling Hittite Signs and Signals’. That kind of communication seems to have been acceptable and familiar among the hearing people with whom the deaf men had daily contact.