Lip read

[football]

Can deaf people of every nation lip read their own language?

[bernardo]

Some deaf people can lip-read spoken languages (to varying degrees of proficiency, according to how much practice they've had), but spoken languages are not necessarily their own languages. Many deaf people have a sign language as their first language and a spoken language as a second language.

[football]

Can any spoken language be lip-read?

[Doolallygirl]

That's like saying can a person with perfect hearing understand a different language, which is answered in most cases by a "no". If I understand that question correctly anyway. Is what your asking "can a deaf English person understand a French person when they are talking French" and that would have to depend on how fluently they know French in the first place. Probably not at all.

[Brumby]

Yes, they can lip read their own language, at least a little. Everyone does it to some degree, usually without realising it. The degree to which a forign language could be lip read would depend on the amount of practice the person has had and their knowledge of that language.

[morg_monster]

I think football means are some languages more difficult to lip read than others? for example maybe in some languages there is a tendency to move the mouth in a more definite, clearer way while speaking, which would make lip reading easier. Or maybe some languages have lots of sounds which 'look the same from the outside', ie the lips make the same shape sequences although different sounds come out. This surely would make lipreading harder as you would have to make a guess at what syllable is being sounded out? If this is what you mean football, then sorry but I don't know the answer!