“Deaf” just means that you have such profound hearing loss that you can't communicate verbally properly, most deaf people do register sound albeit very badly.

I, for instance, have about 75 dB hearing loss, I don't hear people walking, and barely register high heels on tiles, I don't hear cars driving either, but I do hear it when they sound the horn; to give an idea of my deafness.

But I do know what spoken languages sound like, and what rhyming means. And how weird English spelling is, compared to its pronunciation. (English is my second/third language after Dutch and DSL, if that matters)

That said, there are people who really can't hear anything, I know someone who's ossicles (bones inside the ear, vital for hearing) don't make contact, he's never heard anything. He's aware certain words sound alike and (in Dutch) mostly when their spelt the same, but only because school / people around him told him that.

Along the same lines, do deaf people compose poems in ASL? What aspect of that language plays the part of rhyme?

Someone posted a ASL SLAM poetry video yesterday, and it might give some hints. This isn't an authoritative answer, just something off-the-cuff.

• Video: https://youtu.be/dmsqXwnqIw4
• Post: https://lemmy.zip/post/29267045

When ASL is translated into English for poetry, 95% of the time it's lost in translation. That's why I ask the interpreters not to translate the poems. You have rhyme in the English poetry and patterns of verbal repetition. ASL is more about the movement, a visual rhyme versus an auditory rhyme.

Granted, that's referring to ASL-native poetry versus English poetry translated to ASL. But, from that, it would seem that no, rhymes don't make a lot of sense in the same way they do for spoken poetry assuming the person has no auditory reference for the sound of words.

if you're talking about text, then deaf rhymes are going to in a very special category. If you ignore the pronunciation, you're going to find all sorts of interesting rhymes here and there, but they will only work on paper. Also, a deaf poet would miss countless genuine rhymes that just happen to have messy spelling.

In other languages with a more sensible spelling system even deaf people can write poetry that could potentially be appreciated by everyone. English is such a train wreck, that deaf poetry becomes a very special case.

See also: The Chaos, by Gerard Nolst Trenité

Some Deaf people can still hear, in which case rhymes would make sense.

Someone who's never heard before probably wouldn't get rhymes in English. But then again, someone who speaks English probably wouldn't get rhymes in ASL.

People who can hear would have an advantage though in that they'd be able to learn ASL and pick up on wordplay (like "rhyming") that's used in ASL. Unless a Deaf person becomes Hearing, they may never be able to experience rhymes in spoken English.

... it'd be easier if our spelling wasn't so darned stupid, lol

Huh, as someone who became deaf later in life, and thus still have the “internal monologue”, good question!

ASL has their own forms of rhymes or word play, since you don't hear ASL but you see it. They'll use similar looking signs.

or so my friend who teaches deaf kids told me when I asked them a few weeks ago.