Indian Sign Language: So the deaf can hear music

Experience of profound deaf individual at live concert with Indian Sign Language interpreters, highlighting ISL expansion and community empowerment

She sat in front of the stage, lights flickering as people on stage swayed and danced. The bass thumped deep in her chest, and the vibrations resonated through her bones. But she craved more as music wasn’t just vibrations. It was rhythm, beats, and emotions woven into notes.

Soon, however, her heart leapt with joy as she noticed interpreters off the stage, creating a musical experience with hand gestures in Indian Sign Language. “My first live concert left me with a sense of peace and calmness one gets after extreme happiness akin to feeling what hearing people get,” said A Soumya Rao, a profound deaf individual who consults for Tech startups and NGOs. Profound deafness is actually a short form of bilateral profound sensorineural hearing loss. “Profound means 100% deafness and above,” says Soumya.

When she’s out with friends at musical events, Soumya enjoys music by letting her body absorb vibrations from the floor and surroundings. But at a recent concert in Delhi, she experienced music interpreted in sign language for the first time.

The world observed the International Day of Sign Languages in the last week of September and India joined the global celebration with a remarkable milestone. Some 2,500 new terms including words in English and Hindi were added to the Indian Sign Language (ISL) dictionary. Another aspect of the expansion of the ISL was facilitating the deaf community’s engagement with one of the core human experiences - music.

“They were signing and I was looking at them to understand what the song was about. Then for a while I felt the vibrations and let the sounds travel through the body. There were women dressed in traditional clothes dancing to the beats for us to imitate their movements and danced along. This entire process was so much fun,” Soumya Rao recalled. This experience not only left her happy but also gave her a shift in perspective on how music can be experienced by a deaf person.

New entries to ISL

The expansion of the ISL lexicon was spearheaded by the Indian Sign Language Research and Training Centre (ISLRTC), an initiative dedicated to researching, fostering educational access and promoting Indian sign language as a linguistic system.

Often people from the deaf community who communicate via ISL have to spell out individual letters by hand due to the lack of appropriate signs for niche scientific, and cultural terms or the new internet lingo. This latest expansion aims to reduce such challenges by providing signs for casual as well as subject-specific conversations.

The new entries to the ISL dictionary reflect both cultural and technological relevance. They featured English terms like algorithm, Aadhaar card, blockchain and cognitive load, alongside traditional words such as Bihu festival. Not just English, the expansion also included signs for Hindi words corresponding to energy, Ursa Nebula, estrogen and many other essential terms in the fields of science, sports, accessibility and everyday infrastructure.

Alongside these introductions, Bengaluru also witnessed events that spotlight the expressive power of ISL. Beyond Signs: The Power of Gesture, organized by EnAble India — an organisation that empowers people with disabilities through skill-building and employment — exhibited a blend of artworks, sculpture and short films. One of the highlights was Visual Vernacular, a unique storytelling technique that combines expressive body movements, facial expressions, and ISL to create immersive experiences that can help foster a connection between deaf and hearing communities.

Music meets gestures

Dr. Alim Chandani, Mission Leader of Hear A Million, an Initiative of EnAble India, shares his experience at a Diljit Dosanjh concert in 2017 where he had an interpreter in the audience interpreting the concert for him in sign language. Despite facing hurdles such as interpreters not being allowed on stage and people from the audience bumping into him, this event allowed Mr. Chandani to showcase how access should be granted even in informal settings. He later went on to collaborate with organizers of an A.R. Rahman Sufi concert to select a team of interpreters to sign the songs. He worked with the interpreters to help them get a grasp of the lyrical content and after a week of dedicated practice, they were ready to convey music with gestures.

“Music in sign language is like a fully visual depiction. One has to really work with deaf experts, hearing interpreters who understand music and literally decode the meaning of every verse. The interpreters have to be mindful to carefully interpret the true intent of the song that the singer is singing. A lot of songs are metaphorical and don’t have a direct meaning. The key is to forget the words, focus on the meaning and make sure there’s clarity,” said Mr. Chandani in an email correspondence with The Hindu. 

This aspect of visual richness and the intuitive nature of signing is what Kanika Agarwal, a Thane-based deaf educator loves about ISL. Speech is often arbitrary, with no direct relationship between an object and the word assigned to it but ISL offers signs that visually capture the essence of the object. “The word TREE does not give out any info on the visual or any other aspect of the tree. However, the sign for TREE gives out a visual description of the tree. Thus, the correlation between the signs and the visual aspects of the objects is clear,” added Ms Agarwal.

This philosophy is echoed by Shivoy Sharma, CODA (Child of Deaf Adults) and ISL interpreter, who recalls collaborating with Dr. Alim during the preparations for an A.R. Rahman concert. Although unable to attend the event, he was part of the discussions with deaf signers and hearing experts, ensuring that the interpretation was visually appealing, musically and culturally appropriate. Mr. Sharma recalls how instrumental sections such as guitar and drum solos are conveyed through body language that reflects the mood of the music, whether it is joyful, romantic or sad. Also, when a song switches between male and female voices the interpreters subtly shift their body posture from say left or right to indicate the change.

While interpretation demands adaptability, Shivoy emphasizes the importance of adhering to ethical boundaries. It is essential to ensure that interpreters act as neutral linguistic facilitators, conveying the words and emotions of the individual they are signing for without introducing personal bias.

“The interpreting profession here lacks the understanding of the ‘role’ of an interpreter. They are supposed to act as a bridge between two languages. However, many deaf and hearing people themselves are not fully aware of the boundaries that apply to an interpreter’s role, which can contribute to confusion,” said Dr Alim Chandani sharing his experience training interpreters in ISL.

Need awareness and community building

Based on her experience as a deaf educator, Kanika Agarwal has observed a lack of awareness in society, including the families with deaf children. Research shows that in a majority of the cases a deaf child is the first deaf person a family encounters. Parents often face pressure from society to fit in and be “normal”. Also, until very recently even doctors in India discouraged the use of sign language. They were warning that exposure to signing would hinder the child’s ability to speak and thereby their success as individuals.

Eager to connect with the deaf community in India, one of the first things Dr Chandani chose to do after moving to India from the U.S. was to “turn off” his voice even though he can speak very well. “This decision stemmed from the societal perception that deaf people who can speak and hear are often considered more successful than those who primarily communicate through sign language. It’s a misguided assumption that vocal ability somehow defines success, and I wanted to challenge that notion. I wanted to show that a deaf person who signs and doesn’t speak can succeed just like any other ‘normal’ person.”

A crucial step towards breaking this notion is to build awareness and foster a sense of community within the diverse spectrum of Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) individuals. This includes encouraging them to learn sign language and embrace the beauty of deaf culture thereby recognizing the shared experiences of “audism”, he says.

Soumya, who lost her hearing in middle school and spent much of the following 21 years relying on lip reading to communicate, reflects on how navigating hospital visits during the COVID-19 pandemic was such a major challenge. As masks obstructed her ability to read lips it forced her to confront that something was missing from her life. “I was able to figure out that what I was missing was the deaf community which I had not been part of for the first 21 years since my hearing loss,” she says.

Fortunately, she was introduced to the Bengaluru deaf community where she not only learnt ISL but also observed children’s grasp of bilingual education in English and ISL. “I have now been involved for two years. I am happy to report that having a sense of community and belonging has increased which further boosts the morale and sense of living as a deaf person. It’s having an inclusive and accessible environment where I don’t have to struggle hard to meet my communication needs,” added Soumya.

Published - October 26, 2024 04:57 pm IST