Jean Massieu

Jean Massieu (1772-1846) was a French deaf educator born in Semens, France, one of six deaf siblings who was denied schooling until age thirteen. He was enrolled at the Bordeaux School for Deaf Children by Abbe Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard, learned to read and write French, and helped develop what became a formalized French Sign Language. Massieu went on to teach at the Paris school for the deaf, where his students included Laurent Clerc, who later carried deaf education methods to the United States. Massieu subsequently founded and directed his own school for deaf children in Lille, France. His work developing and teaching French Sign Language makes him a foundational figure in deaf education, with influence that reached directly into the origins of American Sign Language.