American Sign Language

People use hands to talk.

They also use their faces and bodies. This is called ASL. It is a way for people to share ideas. Many people use ASL in the United States. It started a long time ago at a school.

Students from many places brought their own signs. These signs came together to make a new language. It is a very special way to connect with others.

American Sign Language, or ASL, is a visual way to talk.

People use their hands to make signs. They also use their faces and bodies to show meaning. This makes ASL a complete and organized language. It is not just acting out words. It has its own rules for how to make sentences.

ASL began in the early 1800s. It started at a school in Connecticut.

Many students brought different signs from their homes. Some signs came from French Sign Language. This language is very close to the French version. Other signs came from small villages in New England. These different ways of signing mixed together. This mix helped create the ASL we know today.

Many people use ASL in the United States and Canada. Some people use it in West Africa too. It is also used in parts of Asia. Many students now study ASL in college. It is a very important part of Deaf culture. People use it to share ideas and connect with others.

American Sign Language, or ASL, is a complete and organized visual language.

It is used by many deaf communities in the United States and most of English-speaking Canada. People also use dialects of ASL in places like West Africa and parts of Southeast Asia. Many people learn it as a second language to communicate with others. This language is very special because it has its own distinct culture. ASL users interact in unique ways through their shared traditions and communication. It serves as a vital tool for connection and togetherness across many different places.

Communicating in ASL uses both manual and nonmanual features.

This means people use their hands to make signs. They also use their faces, heads, and even their torsos to show meaning. It is not just a form of pantomime or acting. Instead, it uses specific movements to convey information. For example, facial expressions can change the meaning of a sign.

The language also has its own grammar that is different from English. While people can use fingerspelling to borrow English words, the sentence structure is unique. Many linguists believe the word order often follows a subject-verb-object pattern.

ASL began in the early 19th century in Connecticut.

It grew at the American School for the Deaf in Hartford. This school was founded in 1817 by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. He wanted to find the best ways to teach deaf students. Gallaudet traveled to Europe to learn about deaf education. He met Laurent Clerc, who was an assistant at a school in Paris. Clerc brought French Sign Language, or LSF, back to the United States. This contact between different signing systems helped create the ASL we know today.

Many different types of signs mixed together to form ASL.

Students at the school brought signs from their own homes and villages. For instance, many students came from Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. They used a local sign language called Martha's Vineyard Sign Language. Other students brought signs from New Hampshire and Maine. About 58% of signs in modern ASL are similar to Old French Sign Language. This shows how much the French style influenced the new language. These different influences merged into one organized system.

Today, ASL is growing in popularity all over North America.

Many high school and university students choose to study it as a foreign language. In some states, colleges must accept it for foreign language credit. While there is no exact count of users, estimates suggest between 250,000 and 500,000 people use it.

This group includes children of deaf adults and many hearing individuals. Even though it is different from British Sign Language, it is a powerful way to connect. ASL remains a beautiful and essential way for people to share their worlds.

American Sign Language, or ASL, is a complete and organized visual language.

It is the primary sign language for deaf communities in the United States and most of English-speaking Canada. Beyond North America, dialects of ASL and ASL-based creoles are used in parts of Southeast Asia and much of West Africa. Many people also learn ASL as a second language, using it as a lingua franca, which is a common language used between people who speak different native tongues.

ASL is much more than simple gestures. It is a sophisticated system with its own distinct culture and unique ways of interacting.

Communicating in ASL requires both manual and nonmanual features. Manual features involve the use of the hands to form specific signs. Nonmanual features include movements of the face, the head, and the torso.

These movements are not just for emotion; they are part of the language's grammar. For example, ASL uses verbal agreement and aspectual marking to provide meaning. It also uses a productive system of forming agglutinative classifiers. These are signs that can be combined to express complex ideas. While some linguists suggest ASL follows a subject–verb–object word order, other theories about its structure exist.

ASL is not a form of pantomime or acting. Although it uses iconicity, where signs look like the things they represent, it is a formal language. This iconicity is more common in sign languages than in spoken languages. When ASL users need to use English words, they often use fingerspelling. However, the grammar of ASL remains entirely unrelated to English grammar.

This distinction is important because it proves ASL is an independent linguistic system. It does not simply follow the rules of the spoken languages surrounding it.

The history of ASL began through a process of language contact in the early 19th century.

In 1817, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet founded the American School for the Deaf (ASD) in Hartford, Connecticut. Gallaudet had been inspired by the learning abilities of a young deaf girl named Alice Cogswell. To find the best teaching methods, he traveled to Europe. He eventually partnered with Laurent Clerc, an assistant from a school in Paris. Clerc brought French Sign Language, or LSF, to the United States.

This combination of LSF and local signing systems allowed ASL to emerge.

Several different signing systems merged to create the modern language. Many students at the ASD brought their own local sign languages. For example, a large group of students came from Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. They used Martha's Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL), which was used by both deaf and hearing residents. Other students brought village sign languages from New Hampshire and the Sandy River Valley in Maine. Research shows that about 58% of signs in modern ASL are cognate to Old French Sign Language. Cognate means the signs share a common origin. While some suggest ASL is a creole language, others argue it has undergone structural changes over time.

For a long time, ASL faced challenges in being recognized as a legitimate language. In the late 19th century, the Milan Congress promoted oralism, which focused on teaching deaf students to speak. This led to the banning of sign languages in many schools. For many years, linguists incorrectly viewed sign language as inferior to spoken language. This changed in 1955 when a linguist named William Stokoe arrived at Gallaudet University.

Stokoe proved that ASL shared the essential features of spoken languages. His work on manualism, or the use of sign language in education, revolutionized both linguistics and deaf education.

Estimating the number of ASL users is difficult because the American census does not count them. Based on a 1974 report by Schein and Delk, reliable estimates place the number of American ASL users between 250,000 and 500,000. This population includes hearing individuals and children of deaf adults, known as CODAs. It is a common mistake to confuse the total deaf population with the number of ASL users. Some incorrect figures suggest there are as many as 15,000,000 users, but these numbers are not accurate. Despite these challenges, ASL continues to grow in popularity. Many colleges now accept ASL as a credit-eligible foreign language, recognizing its complexity and importance.