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Deaf-mute
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For "deafness", see hearing impairment. For "Deaf" as a cultural term, see Deaf culture. For "inability to speak", see muteness.
Deaf-mute was a term historically used by hearing people to identify a person who was deaf and could not speak. In the past "deaf-mute" was socially acceptable, usually to describe deaf people who use a signed language, but is now considered offensive (similar to the way that "colored" was once used to describe African Americans but is now looked upon as derogatory).
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Encyclopedia
For "deafness", see hearing impairment. For "Deaf" as a cultural term, see Deaf culture. For "inability to speak", see muteness.
Deaf-mute was a term historically used by hearing people to identify a person who was deaf and could not speak. In the past "deaf-mute" was socially acceptable, usually to describe deaf people who use a signed language, but is now considered offensive (similar to the way that "colored" was once used to describe African Americans but is now looked upon as derogatory). The preferred term today is simply "deaf". The term "deaf-mute" first appears in the Code of Hammurabi, an ancient set of laws from the near east, in 1700 BC. It is also referenced in ancient Greek writing of the 7th century BC. It continues to be used to refer to deaf people, mainly within a historical context, to indicate deaf people who cannot speak, or have some degree of speaking ability, but choose not to speak because of the negative or unwanted attention atypical voices sometimes attract.
Additionally, it is sometimes used to refer to other hearing people in jest, to chide, or to invoke an image of someone who refuses to employ common sense or who is unreliable. "Deaf and dumb," "semi-deaf" and "semi-mute" are other historic references to deaf people. Of these latter examples, only "deaf and dumb" prevails as a reference.
There are connotations of insensitivity to deaf people concerning these terms of reference and for this reason the prevailing terms are generally looked upon as insulting, inaccurate or socially and politically incorrect. From antiquity (as noted in the Code of Hammurabi) until recent (and less enlightened) times, the terms "deaf-mute" and "deaf and dumb" were even considered analogous to "idiot" by some hearing people.
In Europe and western society, most deaf people are taught to speak with varying outcomes of ability or degrees of fluency. The simple identity of "deaf" has been embraced by the community of signing deaf people since the foundations of public deaf education in the 18th century and remains the preferred term of reference or identity for many years.
Deaf-muteness in art and literature
Stephen King's novel, The Stand, features a main character named Nick Andros who is referred to as "deaf-mute." Though "deaf-mutes" almost always have a voice, King interpreted the term literally and made Nick unable to vocalize.
The phrase is used in The Catcher in the Rye to indicate someone who does not speak his mind, and hears nothing, in effect becoming isolated from the world.
Chief Bromden, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, is believed by all to be deaf-mute, but in fact he can hear and speak; he does not let anyone know this because, as he grew up, he was not spoken to (making him "deaf") and ignored (making him "mute").
In the film Babel, the character Chieko Wataya, played by Rinko Kikuchi, is a deaf teenage girl who is referred to several times in the English subtitles as being a deaf-mute (although it is unclear how accurately the subtitles translate the Japanese reference to the deaf character).
The character Singer in the novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, written in 1940, is referred to as a deaf-mute multiple times.
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