Have you ever stopped and wondered who first invented sign language?
你是否曾经突然停下来想了一下，谁是第一个发明手语的人呢？
How far back does it go?
这可以追溯到多久之前呢？
Let's find out on today's episode of Colossal Questions.
让我们在今天的十万个为什么中一探究竟吧。
Just like any other language, no one person invented sign language by themselves.
就像任何其他的语言一样，手语并不是一个人所创造的。
But many believe the process started with a Spanish monk from the 1500s named Pedro Ponce de Leon.
但是许多人认为这一过程始于1500年代一位名叫佩德罗．庞塞．德莱昂的西班牙僧人。
No relation to the fountain of youth guy.
和长生不老泉没有关系哦。
He was inspired by a system of signs that he and other monks used to communicate with each other during periods of silent meditation and decided to start a school for deaf children.
他的灵感自于他和其他僧侣在静默冥想期间进行相互交流的符号系统，并且决定开办一所聋哑儿童学校。
While he didn't invent a formal sign language, Pedro Ponce de Leon reworked hand signals that they were using at his monastery, turning them into an alphabet he could teach.
虽然他没有发明正式的手语，但佩德罗•庞塞•德莱昂修订了他们在修道院中使用的手势，将其变成了他可以教的字母表。
Pedro certainly wasn't the first person ever to use signals as a way to communicate.
佩德罗当然不是第一个使用手势进行交流的人。
Many indigenous Americans use hand signals to help when trading with the Spanish and other Europeans, for example.
例如，许多美洲原住民在与西班牙人和其他欧洲人进行交易时，会使用一些手势来帮助他们。
But his system was the first known system made solely to help the deaf.
但是他的系统是第一个专门为聋人所设计的系统。
Another Spanish priest by the name of Juan Pablo Bonet took Ponce de Leon's work and built upon it.
另一位名叫胡安•帕勃罗•博内特的西班牙神父接受了庞塞•德莱昂的系统，并以此为基础进行延伸。
He spent years developing methods for teaching this new alphabet of hand signals and wrote a book in 1620 where he laid out all of his teaching methods.
他花了很多年的时间来开发这种新的手势字母表的教学方法，并于1620年写了一本书，在书中阐述了他所有的教学方法。
His book was highly influential and many of the signs that Bonet describes in his book are similar to the sign language alphabet we still use to this day.
他的书影响力深远，博内特在书中描述的许多符号与我们至今仍在使用的手语字母是相似的。
Over a hundred years later, a French priest named Charles-Michel de l'Epee took it one step further and founded the very first public school for deaf children called the National Institute for Deaf-Mutes.
一百多年后，一位名叫查尔斯•米歇尔•德•埃佩的法国牧师将其进一步发展，并建立了第一所针对聋哑儿童的公立学校，即国家聋哑机构。
Children showed up from all across France to study at the new school and many of them came with signs of their own that they had developed to help communicate at home.
来自法国各地的孩子来到这所新学校读书，其中许多人都带有自己的符号系统，表明他们已经发長出了在家庭中进行沟通的能力。
l'Epee collected all of these different signs and created a few of his own, publishing them as the first dictionary of sign language.
埃佩收集了所有的这些不同的符号，并创建了一些自己的符号，并将其作为第一本手语词典出版。
He felt sign language needed to be as complex as any other language so that people could say just about anything without limitations.
他认为手语必须与其他语言一样复杂，以便人们可以几乎没有限制地说出任何内容。
His work and school were so influential that before long, his standardized sign language spread all across Europe, and eventually, the United States as well.
他的工作和学校影响力深远，不久之后，他的标准化手语在欧洲乃至之后在美国传播开来。
Today, people all around the planet use different regional variations of the same sign language that l'Epee developed and standardized using Bonet and Ponce de Leon's work.
如今，世界各地的人们都使用埃佩开发并基于博内特和庞塞•德莱昂的工作基础上加以标准化的同一手语的不同地域变体。
So who invented sign language?
那么谁发明了手语呢？
No one person gets the credit.
功劳不是归功于某一个人的。
Instead, several people spent their life's work trying to help find a way for people with hearing disorders to communicate more easily, and that's pretty cool.
相反的是，很多人花了毕生的时间来努力为听力障碍的人寻找一种更容易沟通的方法，这是一件很酷的事情。
Or another way to put it, thumbs up.
或者换种表达方式来说，是值得我们竖起大拇指的事情。
2026年3月5日于经典龙苑
