Old French Sign Language

I was interested to learn that Clerc brought over the old french sign language and over time it adapted and mixed with the signs used in Connecticut. I was also surprised that there was a lot of hereditary deafness in their communities and how sign language was accepted as well as any speech. I felt sad to hear that people were ashamed for using sign language. It made me think of my younger sister and her best friend. My sister is special needs and she had an ear infection when she was very young that left a hole in my sisters ear drums. For years, my sister and her friend used sign language to communicate with each other and my family. If they were shamed into not using sign language, I would feel sad knowing how hard it was for them to even just communicate normally. I also thought a lot about work while reading this passage. I work as a para with special needs children at an after school program and I communicate with most of the kids by sign language or talkers, so I was happy to learn that sign language has been used before 1817. …show more content…
I noticed how common it was to find someone who knew how to finger spell or knew a few signs for a loved one but I never thought ASL would be in the top five popular languages in America. I thought it was really cool that ASL could be communicated from across a football field, used in underwater communication, and that gorillas could understand ASL! In the future I hope I have the chance to meet Koko, one of the gorillas that understands ASL, and communicate with her! It would be amazing if I could hold a conversation with