The Art of Sign Language
American Sign Language, or ASL, is just like every other language in the world. It has its own roots, grammar, and pronunciations. While some words in ASL are derived from the English language, it is not a mimed form of English. With its own distinct grammar and punctuations, American Sign Language is a complete and complex language, like many around the world. Can this language help more than it is intended for? American Sign Language has no set origin. Karen Nakamura states that this language may have originated from Old French Sign Language because it shares so many of the same signs and vocabulary terms. A French deaf man named Laurent Clerc “...was one of the first teachers of the Deaf in the U.S. in the nineteenth …show more content…
Why is body language and facial expression important in this language? In spoken language, monotone is considered very boring because nothing happens besides sound forming words. Inflection and volume of the voice are crucial to getting the message across. The deaf community cannot hear the visual-less inflections of the human voice so they must see them with body language, facial expression and even the size or speed of the …show more content…
Though many languages have their own slang and dialects that can be considered sub languages, sign language has over 300 different literal languages, such as American, French, British, and Native American. This situation is similar to how Latin has influenced languages like English, Spanish, and French, only those are spoken languages and this is a visual one. These many different variations of this visual language occur mostly because of the local spoken languages. Take, for example, the signs for colors. In ASL the signs make use of the fingerspelled English alphabet. Pink is signed using the letter p in fingerspelling and while pointing the index finger up, the middle finger is brushed twice on the chin going from up to down. In the French the color pink is pronounced “rose” and is signed in LSF (Langue des Signes Française) using the letter r and stroking the adjacent cheek from back to front in two small
American Sign Language, or ASL, is just like every other language in the world. It has its own roots, grammar, and pronunciations. While some words in ASL are derived from the English language, it is not a mimed form of English. With its own distinct grammar and punctuations, American Sign Language is a complete and complex language, like many around the world. Can this language help more than it is intended for? American Sign Language has no set origin. Karen Nakamura states that this language may have originated from Old French Sign Language because it shares so many of the same signs and vocabulary terms. A French deaf man named Laurent Clerc “...was one of the first teachers of the Deaf in the U.S. in the nineteenth …show more content…
Why is body language and facial expression important in this language? In spoken language, monotone is considered very boring because nothing happens besides sound forming words. Inflection and volume of the voice are crucial to getting the message across. The deaf community cannot hear the visual-less inflections of the human voice so they must see them with body language, facial expression and even the size or speed of the …show more content…
Though many languages have their own slang and dialects that can be considered sub languages, sign language has over 300 different literal languages, such as American, French, British, and Native American. This situation is similar to how Latin has influenced languages like English, Spanish, and French, only those are spoken languages and this is a visual one. These many different variations of this visual language occur mostly because of the local spoken languages. Take, for example, the signs for colors. In ASL the signs make use of the fingerspelled English alphabet. Pink is signed using the letter p in fingerspelling and while pointing the index finger up, the middle finger is brushed twice on the chin going from up to down. In the French the color pink is pronounced “rose” and is signed in LSF (Langue des Signes Française) using the letter r and stroking the adjacent cheek from back to front in two small