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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2019 6:16:37 GMT -5
I'm reading A Very Capitalist Condition: A History and Politics of Disability by Roddy Slorach and happened upon the following paragraph:
"Those who believe disability has always existed, for example, apply the term uncritically to societies and historical periods where the term or concept was unknown. This approach is fundamentally mistaken. Even today, the majority of the world’s population living in the Global South may refer to blind or 'slow' people or those with walking difficulties, but have no general term equivalent to 'disability' or 'disabled people' in their language or culture."
I'm aware that members of PD hail from a variety of nations and cultures, and I would like to know what you all think about the accuracy of the above extract. Without an equivalent for the English term 'disability', does this have a negative or positive impact on how disabled people are viewed by the nondisabled minority? Or is this statement simply incorrect?
Personally, I think identifying as a disabled person helps to communicate the idea we belong to an oppressed minority group as we attempt to change attitudes and tackle discrimination. Our use of language is a vehicle for controlling the narrative surrounding disability by subverting its original connotations and associations as a label. Would you agree that lacking a term similar/equivalent to 'disability' in certain languages makes it more difficult to alter society's perceptions? I'd very much like to hear some literal translations in other languages of terms associated with 'disability'.
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Post by kat on Dec 11, 2019 7:11:15 GMT -5
This is very interesting. I don't personally know any languages without a word for disability. The Finnish term for "disabled" makes no true distinctions between those with physical and those with intellectual disabilities, and I would almost wager a guess that it's used more often to speak about those with intellectual disabilities ( lars might be able to chime in better on this). I've always thought that this is really unfortunate, as the needs of those two communities, while they sometimes overlap, are often very different. (It's also made for some awkward misunderstandings when I've talked about what being a dev is, which has then led to furious backtracking of "no no no I mean the PHYSICAL ones"...) Does this problem exist in English?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2019 7:29:45 GMT -5
This is very interesting. I don't personally know any languages without a word for disability. The Finnish term for "disabled" makes no true distinctions between those with physical and those with intellectual disabilities, and I would almost wager a guess that it's used more often to speak about those with intellectual disabilities ( lars might be able to chime in better on this). I've always thought that this is really unfortunate, as the needs of those two communities, while they sometimes overlap, are often very different. (It's also made for some awkward misunderstandings when I've talked about what being a dev is, which has then led to furious backtracking of "no no no I mean the PHYSICAL ones"...) Does this problem exist in English? In English 'disability' is used as an umbrella term for physical, sensory and cognitive impairments. I think we tend to divide this up into physical disability, learning disability, blindness and deafness, but it's hard to say for sure. If I asked a random nondisabled person off the street what disability is, I have no idea which of these impairments would come to their mind first. The difficulty is, as a disabled person, I'm biased toward a view that deviates from the perceived 'norm' regarding disability, especially considering the more militant disability rights stuff I've been reading lately. Unfortunately, (UK) English dictionary definitions of 'disability' don't take into account the social model, only the medical model.
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Post by devogirl on Dec 11, 2019 7:35:59 GMT -5
Personally, I think identifying as a disabled person helps to communicate the idea we belong to an oppressed minority group as we attempt to change attitudes and tackle discrimination. I haven't read that book but I think that may be what he is getting at. In other times or cultures, there was no word to identify all disabled people as a distinct class, for better or worse. Once the group is identified as common experiences and goals, you can start the work of collective action to achieve those goals.
I'm not sure he is 100% correct though that there was no concept of PWDs as a whole. "Disability" is a modern euphemism, a back formation from "ability." It was created to replace the word cripple, which definitely was used to indicate not only mobility impairments but also sensory and intellectual impairments. Cripple was a pejorative word, and that made it harder to use for activism, so it made sense to replace it.
I suspect that many other languages have imported the term "disability" with all of its modern ideological connotations and created neologisms in those languages, either borrowing from English or creating a new word in the language to reflect the usage in English. That has been the pattern with many many other words for modern concepts (democracy, psychology, etc).
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loreley
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Post by loreley on Dec 11, 2019 8:18:08 GMT -5
In German, the terms are equivalent to English, I would say. We have "behindert" which means disabled and which replaced the terms "Krüppel/ verkrüppelt" for cripple/crippled and "idiotisch/schwachsinnig" for "idiotic/weak-minded" used for cognitive impairments. I have a medical handbook from the 1950ies where "weak-minded" and "idiotic" are still used for children with Down-syndrome etc.
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Post by linda on Dec 11, 2019 10:17:06 GMT -5
This is indeed a very interesting question! The Japanese term „shōgaisha“ is used for physical and mental or intellectual disabilities and can be distinguished further in „shintai shōgaisha“ for physically disabled and „seishin shōgaisha“ for mentally disabled people. Interestingly enough, the character „shō“ means „division“ or „barrier“, same character as in „shōji“, which are the movable paperwalls in traditional Japanese houses. „gai“ means damage, harm, injury. The Japanse also have another term, somehow a gentle description, which reveals so much of the culture: „karada no fujiyū na hito“ – a person who‘s body is not free. And here I came across a very interesting explanation regarding the term in Chinese from an article: „The progressive laws of the 1990s are largely a result of pressure from the CDPF, as was the abandonment of the previously common term canfei (‘handicapped and useless’), in favour of canjiren (‘disabled people’).“ Source: aeon.co/essays/what-is-life-like-for-disabled-people-in-china
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2019 10:39:47 GMT -5
Interestingly enough, the character „shō“ means „division“ or „barrier“, same character as in „shōji“, which are the movable paperwalls in traditional Japanese houses. „gai“ means damage, harm, injury. The Japanse also have another term, somehow a gentle description, which reveals so much of the culture: „karada no fujiyū na hito“ – a person who‘s body is not free. This is fascinating. "A person who's body is not free" sounds so meditative. Do you speak Japanese?
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Post by linda on Dec 11, 2019 10:44:10 GMT -5
In German, the terms are equivalent to English, I would say. We have "behindert" which means disabled and which replaced the terms "Krüppel/ verkrüppelt" for cripple/crippled and "idiotisch/schwachsinnig" for "idiotic/weak-minded" used for cognitive impairments. I have a medical handbook from the 1950ies where "weak-minded" and "idiotic" are still used for children with Down-syndrome etc. I have also noticed that some PWDs prefer to use the term „Handicap“ in German. Maybe it’s just my impression, and I never dared to ask, but some people I‘ve been in contact with clearly seemed to avoid the term „Behinderter“. Others, like my ex-boyfriend, don’t mind at all. I always had the feeling that he had a very natural, almost naive, healthy approach to his disability, even though he is far from being on terms with it.
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Post by missparkle on Dec 11, 2019 10:50:26 GMT -5
I'm reading A Very Capitalist Condition: A History and Politics of Disability by Roddy Slorach and happened upon the following paragraph: "Those who believe disability has always existed, for example, apply the term uncritically to societies and historical periods where the term or concept was unknown. This approach is fundamentally mistaken. Even today, the majority of the world’s population living in the Global South may refer to blind or 'slow' people or those with walking difficulties, but have no general term equivalent to 'disability' or 'disabled people' in their language or culture."I'm aware that members of PD hail from a variety of nations and cultures, and I would like to know what you all think about the accuracy of the above extract. Without an equivalent for the English term 'disability', does this have a negative or positive impact on how disabled people are viewed by the nondisabled minority? Or is this statement simply incorrect? Personally, I think identifying as a disabled person helps to communicate the idea we belong to an oppressed minority group as we attempt to change attitudes and tackle discrimination. Our use of language is a vehicle for controlling the narrative surrounding disability by subverting its original connotations and associations as a label. Would you agree that lacking a term similar/equivalent to 'disability' in certain languages makes it more difficult to alter society's perceptions? I'd very much like to hear some literal translations in other languages of terms associated with 'disability'.
I am not sure what the author means by "unknown concept" of disability. Disability, of course, always existed. Now how the societies named it and how they dealt with it is different story. There are scientific proofs about Neanderthals with severe disabilities that could survive only through help of others.
In South Slavic languages today "political correct term" for pwd is "invalid" or "hendikepiran". It is very obvious that these words are not of Slavic origin and that had been adopted not so long ago. There are more original words, many of them that are local and addressing different kind of physical disabilities. The broadest one, that covers all is "bogalj". Nowadays it would have pejorative connotation, although I am not sure it was the case back in history. Word "bogalj" has in its root word "Bog" which means God in Slavic languages. Ancient Slavic "bogъ" had to do with fortune and success, so probably "bogalj" ment something like unfortunate.
I was thinking about word wheelchair in South Slavic languages, and it somehow sounds "wrong". It is "invalidska kolica" if I translate it literally it means "disabled person's stroller", but in the word itself it has implication it should be pushed (by someone else), not independently propelled, controlled.
In Hungarian today politically correct word for disability is "fogyatékosság". All physical impairments come under name "mozgássérültség", if I translate it literally it means "movement damaged". However, Hungarian language is very rich and has like 20 different words for the same thing and when it comes to disabilities it is even more! One thing that is interesting is that particular groups don't like the common word, but prefer to be called specific group name.
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loreley
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Post by loreley on Dec 11, 2019 10:56:26 GMT -5
I have also noticed that some PWDs prefer to use the term „Handicap“ in German. Maybe it’s just my impression, and I never dared to ask, but some people I‘ve been in contact with clearly seemed to avoid the term „Behinderter“. Others, like my ex-boyfriend, don’t mind at all. I always had the feeling that he had a very natural, almost naive, healthy approach to his disability, even though he is far from being on terms with it. I have noticed that too, the use of the term "handicap" in the German language. I thought maybe it has to do with "behindert" having become a youth culture term used in so many derogative contexts, often meaning that someone is a stupid asshole etc., so I could imagine that maybe the younger PWDs try to avoid it. All the older people I know mainly use "behindert" and would probably associate "handicap" more with playing golf
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Post by linda on Dec 11, 2019 11:00:50 GMT -5
Interestingly enough, the character „shō“ means „division“ or „barrier“, same character as in „shōji“, which are the movable paperwalls in traditional Japanese houses. „gai“ means damage, harm, injury. The Japanse also have another term, somehow a gentle description, which reveals so much of the culture: „karada no fujiyū na hito“ – a person who‘s body is not free. This is fascinating. "A person who's body is not free" sounds so meditative. Do you speak Japanese? Yes, I studied Japanese and Chinese translation in university.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2019 11:02:37 GMT -5
I am not sure what the author means by "unknown concept" of disability. Disability, of course, always existed. Now how the societies named it and how they dealt with it is different story. I should have given more context to the extract above. The author is discussing the social model of disability and the language surrounding that. I think he means 'disability' as a minority group that faces social barriers, rather than purely having an impairment. He's not saying that, what we now refer to as 'disabled people', didn't exist in society's of the past.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2019 11:04:04 GMT -5
Yes, I studied Japanese and Chinese translation in university. Cool.
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Post by missparkle on Dec 11, 2019 11:25:17 GMT -5
All the older people I know ... would probably associate "handicap" more with playing golf Or horse racing!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2019 12:28:33 GMT -5
I’m curious why you feel pwds are oppressed? There may be some cultures and countries that do oppress pwds, but I’m surprised to hear it being used to describe pwds in 2019 in first world countries. Disabled people face discrimination in almost all aspects of life. We are oppressed by a severe lack of accessibility of public and private buildings (especially housing), poor access to public transport (depending on where we live), discrimination in the workplace by ignorant employers (not to mention the disability pay gap) and underrepresentation in the media. The nondisabled majority attitudes of us often ranges from misunderstanding, to negative bias, to utter contempt. If that doesn't amount to oppression, I really don't know what does. And I would like to point out that austerity in the UK and elsewhere has resulted in the rolling back of 30 years of progress for disability rights--there really needs to be revival of the more militant disability activism of the 90s. In the UK, while discrimination against disabled people is a breach of human rights, these laws are only effective if we are willing to defend those rights in court. Unfortunately, the legal aid budget has been gutted over the last decade.
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