“I Love You” in ASL
Is Sign Language universal? NOPE! Every spoken language, and nearly every country, has its own unique signed language. In some countries there is more than one signed language, especially if there are multiple spoken languages. And in various Spanish speaking countries, and even English speaking countries, there are different sign languages (ie: Spanish Sign Language is different from Mexican Sign Language; Australian Sign Language and British Sign Language are both different from American Sign Language…).
In North America (the US and most of Canada), American Sign Language or ASL is the primary language of the Deaf. In parts of Canada, where French is the primary spoken language, much of the Deaf community uses French Sign Language. Believe it or not, French Sign Language and American Sign Language have the most similarities among the different languages in sign. WHY? Well….
Back in 1817, Thomas Hopkins Galluadet opened the first school for the Deaf in the United States. It still stands today in Hartford, CT, (at its second site, since 1821) and is called the American School for the Deaf. Galluadet was a minister and had been asked to teach his neighbor’s deaf daughter, so he went abroad to study. When he returned to the US, he brought with him a man named Laurent Clerc – a Deaf teacher of the Deaf in France. At the time, Deaf Americans were using signs to communicate, but the language didn’t yet have a complete syntax and grammatical structure… but that changed with the introduction of French Sign Language. This is fairly typical – there is a small Bedouin village in Israel where a large portion of the population is Deaf. They have a “home” signing system, but have gradually integrated some more formal signs from Israeli Sign Language. Anyway… While ASL developed into a complete and separate language, many of the signs are based on the French word. For example: Chercher in French means To Search, or to look for, in English. In ASL, the sign uses the C hand shape (as in Chercher), moving in a circular motion out from the face, almost like you’re looking into a telescope. Both FSL and ASL use a one-handed signed alphabet, while British Sign Language (BSL) requires both hands to produce its alphabet.
Even in the United States, there are regional dialects within ASL, as there are within spoken English. There are accents, vocabulary differences, etc. In Long Island, NY, many people pronounce coffee differently than it’s pronounced in Cleveland, OH. In the southern states, it’s more likely to hear someone say “howdy” or “y’all” than in the northern states. Similarly, there are differences in the use of signs. ASL is a full and independent language, and it is not universal.