Deafness was an important part of human diversity and sign languages were important facets of global, cultural and linguistic diversity, a conference was told at the weekend.
The conference "Encouraging Signs: Developing Deaf Studies in Ireland" in TCD was the first on the subject to be held in the State which has a deaf community of 4,500.
The president of the World Federation of the Deaf, Mr Markku Jokinen, said many deaf people had received a bilingual deaf education and used sign language freely from birth.
However, he said, everybody should be aware that there were still millions of deaf people who did not have a sign language at all, and who never received any education whatsoever.
In developing countries, it was estimated that more than 80 per cent of deaf people never received any education, he said.
It was encouraging to notice that deaf studies had gained ground in different parts of the world. This field of academic study had increased knowledge of phenomena related to deafness and sign languages, he stated.
"We will soon need new knowledge that convinces people that deafness is an important part of human diversity and that sign languages are important facets of global cultural and linguistic diversity. This in turn sheds new light on what it means to be deaf and to be a sign language user," Mr Jokinen said.
Prof Jim Kyle from the University of Bristol's deaf studies said deaf people were expected by the hearing world to use sign language and English.
"Deaf people experience very little bilingualism among hearing people in their daily lives. We need some urgent thinking on this as we are in danger of using bilingualism as just another oppressive measure to force deaf people to adjust to hearing monolingualism and unchanging attitudes." he said.
He said the reality for most deaf people had been late learning of their native language and incomplete learning of the spoken and written language of the society in which they lived.
It was currently quite popular to portray deaf people as either socially excluded or as a cultural minority group who strived for a bilingual existence.
"Most don't really want to be bilingual if it means that they have to do all the adapting and fitting in," he said. Hearing people were quite happy for deaf people to be bilingual, he added.