Potential causes for generational deafness in space colony
I'm working on a sci fi story which heavily integrates themes of varying alien configurations and how they shape society, culture and language. As part of this theme, I want to have some of the human characters using a variety of different methods of communication, rather than falling into the "all humans communicate through spoken language and aliens have variations" trap. I decided to have a main human character who primarily uses a signed language, and have decided to 'make' her Deaf as a part of this. (Capitalized intentionally, see below.)
One thing I really want for this character is for her to come from a cultural background of heavy signed language usage. It's important to the themes and the character to have her come from a Deaf cultural background, and I'm looking for things which would cause and maintain a population with high stable rates of Deafness/hearing impairment as a result, which would still apply outside of her place of origin, as that is where much of the story is set. I've also decided for other reasons that I want her to come from a space colony near the setting location rather than from Earth itself.
The idea I have come up with is that this settlement is one of the earliest human settlements outside of the solar system, coming from an intergenerational starship with a minimal staff and a wide variety of frozen/preserved embryos meant to establish a human population upon arrival. The idea I had is that for whatever reason, those embryos happened to have a high frequency of Deafness, and as the years passed resulted in an established human settlement which mostly uses a signed language.
I do not need an explanation/justification as to why they wouldn't all use technology to become hearing. I have that covered. My question instead is: what sorts of causes might result in a population with widespread generational Deafness such as this? I had originally conceived of this as purely biological reasons and been looking for something which would specifically affect Deafness rates in the population, but some other suggested explanations have suggested environmental factors which could cause Deafness to be specifically created or selected for. These answers are also appropriate. I am not sure how to update the tags for this to reflect this.
The best answer will have a plausible genesis (such as a specific genetic syndrome and/or something which could cause stored embryos to be susceptible to it, or a reason for the starship to be originally crewed by Deaf folks) and a reason why it would be stable many generations down the line. Scenarios should be consistent with a culturally Deaf background and a signing background, rather than suggesting alternate means of communication technology.
EDIT: Okay. I was cool with the edit which removed some other plot details for clarity, but ever since it was made I've been getting "what if instead of Deafness you did [x]" answers, and that is not what I'm looking for. I specifically am looking for a Deaf culture here.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/129501. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1 answer
First, I'll say that it would be a lot better to have your characters descend from or be raised by capital D Deaf people. This way you get an established Sign Language (which can morph like any language will) vs having to spontaneously create one. I've actually seen a first generation Sign Language (wrote my undergraduate thesis on it) and it's not as grammatically complex as an established language (though it for sure had grammar) and the vocabulary wasn't very big either. Plus you have consistency issues. In this case, the language didn't start up until the children were old enough to go to school, and there were strong influences from visitors and of course the native spoken language. While doing it this way can make an interesting story, if you want to honor Deaf culture, preserve an existing language with native users.
There's a terrific short story in this anthology:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23129839-octavia-s-brood
Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements
Earth transports babies deemed unacceptable due to their disabilities to a space colony. Which turns out to be a pretty awesome place.
While of course a lot of deafness is acquired, for those born deaf, even existing technology can diagnosis it (all newborns in hospitals get the screening tests and there are further tests for those who "fail").
Another way to get a Deaf community is to have a colony come from a group of workers or settlers chosen for their deafness. Because it was advantageous for that location or the work. As they raise families, many of the children will also be deaf, since some deafness is genetic (you can even screen for that initially). And everyone will grow up signing.
Depending on what's around, people born hearing might not thrive, or might live with whatever noise there is, or the noise could be gone by then, or they might choose (or their parents will choose) to make them deaf medically for their own comfort and health. I can imagine all the hearing readers gasping right now. But the reality is that our society routinely removes someones ability or even bodypart that is not deemed important, because there are other benefits. Extra fingers? who needs those? A quick clip of the auditory nerve could save a lot of children in this colony.
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