Deaf in Greece

Introduction / History

Deaf and hearing are like oil and water, if you leave them alone, they will separate. Many Deaf leave their biological family and join what they call their "Deaf family." Many hearing people tend to think the deaf are not very intelligent because of the communication barriers, as well as the speech patterns deaf exhibit. Many deaf people feel hearing people oppress them and purposely withhold information from them. There is very little "mixing" of the core deaf community with the hearing community.
The difficulty with being deaf is not the inability to hear, but the great barrier to communicating with the surrounding dominant culture, especially as related to acquiring information. Deaf children with hearing parents are the only ones in the world who do not learn language from their parents. An alternate name for Greek Sign is Elleniké Noematiké Glossa It is recognized as the official language of the deaf by a law passed in 2000. According to one source, in 1996 there were 12,000 children and 30,000 adults who were active users.

What Are Their Beliefs?

Since most deaf do not communicate with their hearing parents or religious leaders, they do not follow any religion. The vocabulary of one sign language is very different from that of another so each needs a separate translation of scripture. The goal of the team of translators is to produce a chronological "primary" Bible consisting of 110 stories representing about 8.5% of the Bible. It is planned for DVD and streaming on the web.

Text Source:   Anonymous