We report the identification of a novel locus responsible for an autosomal recessive form of hearing loss (DFNB) segregating in a Palestinian consanguineous family from Jordan. The affected individuals suffer from profound prelingual sensorineural hearing impairment. A genetic linkage with polymorphic markers surrounding D9S1776 was detected, thereby identifying a novel deafness locus, DFNB31. This locus could be assigned to a 9q32-34 region of 15 cM between markers D9S289 and D9S1881. The whirler (wi) mouse mutant, characterised by deafness and circling behaviour, maps to the corresponding region on the murine chromosome 4, thus suggesting that DFNB31 and whirler may result from orthologous gene defects.