“Deaf” just means that you have such profound hearing loss that you can’t communicate verbally properly, most deaf people do register sound albeit very badly.

I, for instance, have about 75 dB hearing loss, I don’t hear people walking, and barely register high heels on tiles, I don’t hear cars driving either, but I do hear it when they sound the horn; to give an idea of my deafness.

But I do know what spoken languages sound like, and what rhyming means. And how weird English spelling is, compared to its pronunciation. (English is my second/third language after Dutch and DSL, if that matters)