If you were born deaf and dumb and blind, what language do you speak?

I would suicide

you have deaf and mute people who have managed to overcome the difficulties of this disability: don't forget that sign language exists and that recently, a device allowing deaf people to perceive the vibrations of music has been developed.

there are many outdated terms that deserve to be forgotten and we must have a lot of respect for these people.

in history, the deaf and mute people have suffered enormously from their conditions, for a long time without universal sign language or an elaborate means of communication and they were sometimes excluded from societies, and for example in the periods of inquisition during Western Middle Ages, deaf and mute people were treated like lepers, even burned alive, because they were suspected of witchcraft.

Yet they also fascinated and were sometimes considered people of superior wisdom capable of hearing what others do not hear and of being able to communicate with the spirit world.

@NaturalBornTraveller said in #4:
> "All babies are born dumb"
> -clousems (probably)

Speak for yourself. I was a freakin' genius.

@BarcelonaGirl
Probably one of the dominant languages of your country:

- Spanish in Mexico
- Portuguese in Brazil
- Samoan in Samoa
- Egyptian Arabic in Egypt
- Hausa/Yoruba/Igbo ... in Nigeria
- English in England
- Mandarin/Cantonese ... in China
- Hindi/Bengali/Marathi/Telugu/Tamil/Gujarati/Urdu/Kannada .../English in India

signed in some form of deafblind alphabet. Two-handed manual alphabets are suited for this purpose as they can be modified to include tactile stimuli, that is they use the sense of touch: One person (the sender) touches the inside of another person's (the receiver's) hand (open palm, fingers slightly apart). There's a unique touch gesture for each letter so the person receiving the information via the sense of touch in their hand can interpret the information being sent. When they want to answer, they can simply switch roles. This allows deafblind people to communicate with other people who have learned this tactile alphabet and use the same language (English, ...).

Here's an example of such an alphabet used in parts of the English speaking world:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-handed_manual_alphabets#BANZSL_deafblind_alphabet
(also includes a short video showing how it's used)

It would be interesting to learn about similar communication systems used in countries with a language that doesn't have an alphabet (like China). But I'm sure there are possible solutions for that too (transliterating a Chinese dialect using pinyin, then using a manual alphabet?).

Numbers

@Thalassokrator I wasn't aware of the existence of deafblind alphabet. However, is it applicable to people who were born deafblind? Do they actually manage to learn to communicate?

Isn’t the correct answer “pinball”?

I believe one learns the letters of a particular language, one-by-one, and learns to put them together to make the pattern we call a word. It isn't at all clear that the word would have a sonic content, mentally, for the learner. Indeed, I don't see how it could unless the deafness were partial. But a word is nevertheless learned. That word is part of some recognized language -- the language being taught.

It is an amazing feat. But it's been achieved by some to an astonishing mastery.

Watch the movie 'The Miricle Worker' (1962) - The Helen Keller story - ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller#Portrayals )
True story on how someone who was like that, was taught to communicate. It became the language of the hand. Good theater! - :] - @BarcelonaGirl -

@Skittle-Head thanks for the pointer. However, she lost sight and hearing when she was 19 months. Probably not enough for her to have had time to learn any spoken language, but definitely enough to have been surrounded in a world of visual and acoustic sensations.

On the other hand, when you are blind and deaf from birth, the only sensations you ever experienced are olfactive, tactile and gustative. It is not clear to me if a person in this situation would become able to communicate with the outside world, or even aware of the existence of an outside world.