Reducción de las letras y arte para enseñar a hablar a los mudos (Bonet)
- Date
- 1620 · confidence high
- Place
- Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain
- Credited to
- Juan Pablo Bonet
- Field
- Communication
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
The first printed treatise on the education of the deaf: it sets out an oralist method based on a one-handed manual alphabet, illustrated with engravings, and on learning pronunciation letter by letter.
Bonet was accused of drawing on the method of Manuel Ramírez de Carrión, whom he had assisted; Ramírez's book (Maravillas de naturaleza, 1629) is later but his practice earlier. The diffusion of Bonet's manual alphabet is well documented.
What it led to
- a fingerspelling alphabet that inspired later manual alphabets
- oralism in the education of the deaf in the 17th-18th centuries
- European diffusion of the method (Wallis, Amman, De l'Épée)