Deaf culture is the set of social beliefs, behaviors, art, literary traditions, history, values, and shared institutions of communities that are influenced by
deafness and which use
sign languages as the main means of communication. When used as a cultural label especially within the culture, the word
deaf is often written with a capital
D and referred to as "big D Deaf" in speech and sign. When used as a label for the
audiological condition, it is written with a lower case
d.