Introduction

Through hand movements rather than speech, people using sign language can communicate their thoughts and feelings. Around the world there are more than 100 sign languages, which are mainly used by deaf people. Most deaf people in North America use American Sign Language (ASL).

What is Sign Language?

People using sign language make shapes, called signs, with their hands and arms. They also move their bodies and make facial expressions. Signs can stand for letters, words, or ideas. For example, to make the sign for cat, ASL users hold their hands up to their faces and “draw” whiskers with their fingers.

Sign languages are unique languages. ASL has different rules of grammar and different slang than spoken English. ASL is also different from other sign languages, including British Sign Language and Mexican Sign Language.

History

Throughout history both hearing and deaf people have used some signs to communicate. For example, babies quickly learn to point at things they want. Often people use a system of signs to communicate with others who speak different languages.

In the 1700s a priest in France taught deaf children a system for spelling out French words with hand gestures. Some gestures stood for letters; others stood for ideas. The system eventually became French Sign Language, which is still used in France.

In 1817 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet founded the first permanent school for the deaf in the United States. He had learned French Sign Language from a teacher in France. Gallaudet taught his students the French signs. ASL was formed by combining Gallaudet’s teachings with signs that deaf people already used among themselves. Today many countries have their own sign language.