Deaf vs. deaf

“Deaf” with a capital "D" refers to people with hearing loss who consider themselves part of the Deaf community, and share a common culture and language. Alternatively, “deaf” with a lowercase "d" simply refers to someone who’s medically deaf, but doesn’t consider deafness part of their identity or have a connection to the Deaf community. Often, people who identify as Deaf were born deaf, or become Deaf before they acquire spoken language and communicate in sign language, whereas those who identify as deaf are often late-deafened, don't have a strong connection to the Deaf community, and communicate orally.