If a person is partially deaf, I think they would be able to acquire the language, and actually I've seen partially deaf people speak in addition to the use of a sign language. I suppose this means they can use that language when they think, is this correct?
But what happens when someone is totally deaf? Hence my question: what language, if any, do deaf people use for their thoughts?
And also, how is this determined?
Update: Since this created some misunderstanding, my use of "if any" does not mean that Sign Languages are not languages or that I don't see them as such. I actually do. Rather, I meant to say that I was thinking that maybe totally deaf people could either use no language at all, just images or self-thinking or do like other people and use a mix of images/sign languages. And also how this had been determined.
