I have a bit of experience with communicating with deaf people in (bad) ESL, and I just recently wondered, is it much harder to be a deaf person in a culture based on tonal language? Is it possible to get cues to a person’s tone visually?
I was also thinking that, from my understanding in Mandarin it is very hard to tell except vaguely what songs are about because of the lack of tones, would a deaf person in an area with primarily mandarin speakers who could read lips’ experience be like the hearing person’s experience trying to interpret songs, since the tone is missing to both? (I hope that makes sense).
Any first hand experience with the deaf in cultures with tonal languages is welcome. Yes I know a lot of deaf people cannot lip read even in a-tonal cultures.