I know we’ve only just met, but I’ve been at this interpreter history game for over ten years now. In fact, it began February 13th, 2008. It was not a Friday, but it might as well have been. That day, I made a stack of copies for a project I worked very hard on, but was only allowed to share a small portion of it.
I still have the folder. 
Since then, I’ve spent thousands of hours, and the equivalent of two years’ earnings on tuition, research travel, equipment, copies, postage, you name it. I did a master’s in Communication, and now 2/3 of a Translation Studies doctorate—the first such scholarship showing how interpreting emerged in the UK and US, before BSL, ASL or Deaf communities came about.
Here’s evidence of how this accelerates the breakdown of collagen in the face, and pigmentation in the hair:
 2008 vs. 2018 |
Okay, you cannot see it clearly in the pictures, but things have taken a turn. No matter! The kind of “work” I need to get done may be as expensive, but much more gratifying. After 30 years of not speaking my own words, or using my own voice, it is deeply cathartic to tell our story.
| The traditional gift for a 10-year anniversary is aluminum, so here is one of the first figures cast in that metal. It is the god Anteros, born for a playmate to his more famous older brother. He is the god of requited or returned love, which is fitting for a labor like this one, where nothing is lost. |  |
My road to academia has been fraught with traffic delays almost as severe as Piccadilly Circus, where that Anteros statue has balanced for over 100 years. It seems that I have been waiting at least that long. So I got myself an anniversary gift.
Throughout this research, my favorite discovery is a brief reference in a 17th-century Canon law treatise on marriage. I first presented about it five years ago this week, first wrote about it in 2015, and have mentioned it at every available opportunity since. Before his death in 1624, Henry Swinburne declared that if one or both marriage candidates gesture their vows of consent silently, and
“neither of the parties express any words at all, but some third person recite the words…the Contract is of like Efficacy, as if they themselves had mutually expressed the words before recited by that third person”
Wait, what? A deaf person doesn’t necessarily have to speak the vows, but if the priest prefers to hear the liturgy recited, a third party can read the frozen text while the deaf party gestures, nods, and otherwise indicates willing participation. And it counts as though they had said those exact words themselves. That was almost 400 years ago.
So I found a deal on an original (1686—it was published posthumously) copy of A treatise of spousals, or matrimonial contracts: Wherein all the questions relating to that subject are ingeniously debated and resolved. I give you, my friends, the unboxing of the first interpreting “textbook” in history:
Leahy, A. (24 Aug 2013). In search of Interpreter 0: Tracing Anglo–American sign langauge interpreting since 1198 A.D. Presented at the Utah Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, Taylorsville, UT.
Leahy, A. M. (2015). Interpreted communication with deaf parties under Anglo–American common law to 1880 (Master’s thesis). Southern Utah University, Cedar City, UT.
Swinburne, H. (1686). A treatise of spousals, or matrimonial contracts: Wherein all the questions relating to that subject are ingeniously debated and resolved. London: S. Roycroft for R. Clavell.
This post was approved by Johnny Dollar. 