Juan Pablo Bonet Publishes the First Modern Treatise on Sign Language Phonetics

In 1620 Spanish priest and educator of the deaf Juan Pablo Bonet published Reducción de las letras y arte para enseñar a hablar a los mudos (‘Reduction of letters and art for teaching mute people to speak’) in Madrid. This work was the first modern treatise on sign language phonetics. It described a method of oral education for deaf people and illustrated a manual alphabet.