Task 2 Dictation
Sign Language
Deaf people, people who can't hear, are still able to communicate quite well with a special language.
It's called sign language. The speaker of sign language uses hand gestures in order to communicate.
Basic sign language has been used for a long, long time. But sign language wasn't really developed until about 250 years ago.
In the middle of 1700s, a Frenchman named Epee developed sign language. Epee was able to speak and hear, but he worked during most of his life as a teacher of deaf people in France.
Epee developed a large number of vocabulary words for sign language. Epee taught these words to his deaf students.
Epee's system used mostly picture image signs. We call them picture image signs because the signs create a picture.
For example, the sign for sleep is to put both hands together and then to place the hands flat against the right side of your face, and then to lower your head slightly to the right. This action was meant to show the position of sleep. So we call it a picture image sign.