Jacob Rodrigues Pereira or Jacob Rodrigue Péreire (April 11, 1715 – September 15, 1780) was an

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

and the first

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

deaf-mute Deaf-mute is a term which was used historically to identify a person who was either deaf and used sign language or both deaf and could not speak. The term continues to be used to refer to deaf people who cannot speak an oral language or have som ...

s in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. Jacob Rodrigues Pereira was born in Berlanga (Badajoz),

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

, a descendant of a Portuguese

Crypto-Jewish Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews" (origin from Greek ''kryptos'' – , 'hidden'). The term is especially applied historically to Sp ...

family from Chacim,

Trás-os-Montes Trás-os-Montes () is a geographical, historical and cultural region of Portugal. Portuguese for "behind the mountains", Trás-os-Montes is located northeast of the country in an upland area, landlocked by the Douro and Tâmega rivers to south a ...

. His

baptismal Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christians, Christian sacrament of initiation and Adoption ...

name was Francisco António Rodrigues, and his parents were João Lopes Dias and Leonor Rodrigues Pereira. In about 1741 he and his mother and siblings moved to

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...

and returned to

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...

; he adopted the name Jacob and his mother Abigail Rivka Rodrigues. Pereira formulated signs for numbers and punctuation and adapted

Juan Pablo Bonet Juan Pablo Bonet (–1633) was a Spanish priest and pioneer of education for the deaf. He published the first book on deaf education in 1620 in Madrid. Juan Pablo Bonet was born in Torres de Berrellén (Aragon), and became secretary to Juan Fer ...

manual alphabet Fingerspelling (or dactylology) is the representation of the letters of a writing system, and sometimes numeral systems, using only the hands. These manual alphabets (also known as finger alphabets or hand alphabets) have often been used in deaf e ...

by adding 30

handshapes In sign languages, handshape, or dez, refers to the distinctive configurations that the hands take as they are used to form words. In Stokoe terminology it is known as the , an abbreviation of ''designator''. Handshape is one of five components o ...

, each corresponding to a sound instead of to a letter. He is therefore seen as one of the inventors of manual language for the deaf, though he did not invent it in its entirety. The manual alphabet has roots dating back to medieval Catholic monasteries, though Pereira did adapt the Spanish manual alphabet published (though plagiarized) by Juan Pablo Bonet to better fit the French language. He is sometimes miscredited with being the first person to teach a non-verbal deaf person to speak, when in fact,

Pedro Ponce de León Dom Pedro Ponce de Leon, O.S.B., (1520–1584) was a Spanish Benedictine monk who is often credited as being "the first teacher for the deaf". Biography Ponce de Leon established a school for the deaf at the San Salvador Monastery in Oña. His ...

is more reliably credited as the first back in the sixteenth century. In 1759, he was made a member of the

Royal Society of London The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

A lifelong devotee to the well-being of the Jews of southern France,

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

, and

, beginning in 1749 he was a volunteer agent for the

Portuguese Jews Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the i ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. In 1777, his efforts led to Jews from Portugal receiving the right to settle in France. In 1772, he published a Tahitian vocabulary for

Louis-Antoine de Bougainville Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville (, , ; 12 November 1729 – August 1811) was a French admiral and explorer. A contemporary of the British explorer James Cook, he took part in the Seven Years' War in North America and the American Revolution ...

's ''Voyage'', after learning the language from

Ahutoru Ahutoru (Tahiti, c. 1740 — Tôlanaro, 6 November 1771) was a Tahitian man, brother and adopted son of Ereti, the chief of the village where Louis Antoine de Bougainville anchored. He became the foremost intermediary between the Tahitians and th ...

, the first Tahitian to sail aboard a European vessel. In 1876 Pereira's remains were transferred from the Cimetière de la Villette (where he had been buried the year in which that cemetery was opened) to that of the

Cimetière de Montmartre The Cemetery of Montmartre (french: link=no, Cimetière de Montmartre) is a cemetery in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, France, that dates to the early 19th century. Officially known as the Cimetière du Nord, it is the third largest necropolis ...

. In Bordeaux the street "Rodrigues-Pereire" was named in his honor. His grandsons, the

Péreire brothers Émile Pereire (3 December 1800, Bordeaux - 5 January 1875, Paris) and his brother Isaac Pereire (25 November 1806, Bordeaux – 12 July 1880, Gretz-Armainvilliers) were major figures in the development of France's finance and infrastructure durin ...

Émile Péreire Émile Pereire (3 December 1800, Bordeaux - 5 January 1875, Paris) and his brother Isaac Pereire (25 November 1806, Bordeaux – 12 July 1880, Gretz-Armainvilliers) were major figures in the development of France's finance and infrastructure durin ...

(1800–1875) and

Isaac Péreire Émile Pereire (3 December 1800, Bordeaux - 5 January 1875, Paris) and his brother Isaac Pereire (25 November 1806, Bordeaux – 12 July 1880, Gretz-Armainvilliers) were major figures in the development of France's finance and infrastructure durin ...

(1806–1880), were well-known French financiers and bankers during the second empire who encouraged the construction of the first railway in

in 1835. In 1852, they founded the Société Générale du Crédit Mobilier.

References

External links

Biography Jacob Rodrigues Pereira
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pereira, Jacob Rodrigues 1715 births 1780 deaths 18th-century French inventors French educators Fellows of the Royal Society Deaf culture Pereire family 18th-century French Sephardi Jews Jewish Portuguese writers Spanish emigrants to France Burials at Montmartre Cemetery 18th-century Portuguese people 18th-century Sephardi Jews Educators of the deaf