Creation of Bonet's Sign Alphabet
- When
- 1620
- Where
- Madrid
- Episodes
- 1
In 1620, Spanish priest Juan Pablo Bonet published a manual in Madrid detailing a sign alphabet for teaching speech to the deaf, marking a significant early development in deaf education.
Episodes
Background and detail
Background. Juan Pablo Bonet, a Spanish priest and pioneer in deaf education, was born in Aragon and served as secretary to the Duke of Frías. His work contributed to the modern recorded history of sign language in 17th-century Spain.
Publication of the Sign Alphabet. Bonet published 'Reducción de las letras y arte para enseñar a hablar a los mudos' in Madrid in 1620. This text is recognized as the first book on deaf education and introduced a manual alphabet that influenced later sign languages.
People involved
- Juan Pablo Bonet · Spanish priest and author
Sources
- Juan Pablo Bonet Wikipedia, revision of 2025-12-09
- Sign language Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-22
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.