Do deaf people have an accent?

[marmaduke]

Do deaf people have accents pertaining to where they live, and can they hear themselves when they're reading something in their heads - as non-deaf people can?

[bernardo]

Yes, because most deaf people have had hearing but lost it.  People who have always been deaf would have no concept of accent, just as people who have been blind from birth can have no idea of colour.  I think that most deaf people can probably hear something of their own voices, as vibrations in the bones rather than the actual sound.

[5029]

Some people who are born deaf do have slight accents, because they copy the way people physically talk.  They would copy the shape of their mouth and lips and the movements of their tongue, so to some extent have an accent

[landie]

I have a profoundly deaf sister who lost her hearing when she was a toddler. Profoundly deaf people do have difficulty with word sounds and do lip read well when words are well enunciated. I'm not sure how the partially deaf read to themselves. By the way, I'm not deaf and read a lot but I've never heard my voice when reading silently.

[jcherbstritt]

Deaf people who use British Sign Language do effectively have accents - signs differ between England and Scotland for example, and even in Glasgow Catholic signers have different signs to Protestant signers - all to do with the circles they keep.  But people who use BSL recognise all the different signs used for the same meaning.  Deaf people whose first language is BSL find difficulty reading English, as English is not their first language and has a different gramatical structure to English.

[Sammy Snake]

In reply to the post above about British Sign Language, I am learning this at college at the moment.

Last week our regular lecturer (deaf) was away and we had a stand in (hearing).  She used different signs for some words than our regular lecturer and explained it as regional differences, similar to regional accents for hearing people.

All very confusing to us students, especially when she mentioned that in our exam (beg. of March) the examiner might use different signs again!

[marmaduke]

I already understood about different regional sign language versions, and that American Sign Language is totally distinctive from British Sign Language. I was wondering more if deaf people can hear how words sound in their own heads - would a northern deaf person assume that 'bath' is pronounced with a short vowel and so on. I assume no, since words do not mean the same for them, they are signed and understood.