A little more about American Sign Language
Sign languages have probably been around for as long as there have been deaf people in the world. American sign language is a variation among others, that it can be beneficial to learn even if you are not a deaf person.
The need to communicate, share your thoughts and influence other people is strong in most people, and those who aren’t able to do so using their voice have instead come up with ingenious ways to speak to the eyes instead. Sign language is thus not an invention that can be credited to a single person. Instead it has been developed among deaf people in a very similar manner most spoken languages have evolved.
People in different countries have also developed different sign languages. For example, there is a British sign language and an American sign language, and a person speaking the American one will not understand a person using the British version – and vice versa.
Sign language evolves
Since all sign languages use hand gestures and expressions, many people believe that they are all the same. As many gestures and facial expressions we humans make are indeed similar regardless of culture, this indeed seems like a logical deduction.
However, as sign language is used in a much more complex way – for everything we would use our spoken language of choice – each sign language have developed it’s own strict rules. American sign language for example, is different from English and has its own unique grammar.
Just as we can not be quite sure what the first spoken languages sounded like, we know very little of what the first sign language looked like. It is natural to assume that people, before there where real languages, used a mixture of sounds, expressions and gestures in order to communicate. Over time, this communication became more and more complex.
While those people who could hear, came to eventually develop their grunts, screams and whatever into more sophisticated speech, sign language went through a similar evolution among deaf people.
Signing and Pointing
The primary tools of sign language are gestures and expressions. Gestures are those signs performed with the hands. There are gestures that work in a similar fashion words do in spoken languages. For example, one hand gesture or sign may say “ball” while another one means “horse”. There are as many signs in sign language as there are words in spoken languages, but not all spoken words have an equivalent gesture and not all gestures have a corresponding word.
A particularly useful gesture is that of pointing. The person performing the sign language can point at himself, at other people or other things close by just like people would normally use this gesture when talking. However, using sign language you can also point to various locations without there being anyone or anything there. In this case, something or someone has been allocated to that particular spot earlier on in the conversation.
Learning American sign language can not only give you a greater understanding of the deaf culture. As ASL is the fourth most “spoken” language in the US, it may also help you become more of an asset to any potential employer – as you will no longer only be able to speak using your voice, but you will also be able to speak using your hands.