American Sign Language

American Sign Language is the dominant sign language in the United States, Canada and parts of Mexico. American Sign Language is usually abbreviated ASL though it has also been known as Ameslan. As with other sign languages, its grammar and syntax are separate and distinct from the spoken language(s) spoken in its area of influence. It originated around the turn of the century as the sign languages of the American Indians, French Sign Language, and the sign language of the residents of Martha's Vineyard merged with one another and probably other linguistic influences at the first school for the deaf in America, established by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet.

ASL is a natural language as proved to the satisfaction of the linguistic community by William Stokoe. It is a manual language meaning that the information is expressed not with combinations of sounds but with combinations of handshapes, movements of the hands, arms and body, and facial expressions. It is used natively and predominantly by the deaf of the United States and Canada.

Although it often seems as though the signs are meaningful of themselves, in fact they are as arbitrary as words in spoken language. For example, hearing children often make the mistake of using "you" to refer to themselves, since others refer to them as "you." Children who acquire the sign YOU (pointing at one's interlocutor) make similar mistakes - they will point at others to mean themselves, indicating that even something as seemingly explicit as pointing is an arbitrary sign in ASL, like words in a spoken language.

In recent years, it has been shown that ASL has had a positive impact on the intellect of hearing children who are exposed to it. When infants are taught the language early, parents are able to respond accordingly to the infant at a developmental stage when verbal speech, which requires extremely fine control of many, interacting parts, is not yet able to be formed. The ability of the child to actively communicate and interact earlier than would otherwise be possible accelerates the cognitive development of the child.

ASL has been taught to chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas. Several have mastered more than one hundred signs. One deaf native speaker on the Washoe research team was asked to write a sign down whenever she saw them and although the hearing people on the team were turning in long lists of signs, what she saw were not signs at all, but simply gestures. The researchers in the studies of Koko and Washoe also refused to share their raw data with the scientific community.

Commercial Usage: American Sign Language

Domain	Title
Books	American Sign Language Dictionary [ABRIDGED] (reference) Basic Course in American Sign Language (reference) Learning American Sign Language (reference) The American Sign Language Handshape Dictionary (reference) (more book examples)

Theater & Movies	Signing Time: An American Sign Language (ASL) Video for Children (reference) (more DVD examples; more video examples)

High Tech	American Sign Language for Kids (3 CD-ROM) (reference) (more camera examples; more video game examples; more computer examples; more electronic examples; more software examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Non-Fiction Usage: American Sign Language

Frequency of Internet Keywords: American Sign Language

Modern Translations: American Sign Language

Language		Translations for "American sign language"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Japanese Kanji		アメーバ赤痢 (AMeDAS, amenity, American, American casual, American coffee, American football, American Indian, American League, American plan, American rugby, Americanism, Americanize, America's Cup race, Ameslan, amethyst, amoebic dysentery, Automated Meteorological Data Acquisition System, crawfish, dogwood, puma, redwood). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		アメスラン (Ameslan). (various references)

Pig Latin		americanay ignsay anguagelay
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Alternative Orthography: American Sign Language

Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)

41 6D 65 72 69 63 61 6E 53 69 67 6E 4C 61 6E 67 75 61 67 65

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)

Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)

01000001 01101101 01100101 01110010 01101001 01100011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01010011 01101001 01100111 01101110 00100000 01001100 01100001 01101110 01100111 01110101 01100001 01100111 01100101

HTML Code (1990) (references)

&#65 &#109 &#101 &#114 &#105 &#99 &#97 &#110 &#32 &#83 &#105 &#103 &#110 &#32 &#76 &#97 &#110 &#103 &#117 &#97 &#103 &#101

ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)

0041 006D 0065 0072 0069 0063 0061 006E 0053 0069 0067 006E 004C 0061 006E 0067 0075 0061 0067 0065

Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)

Subject	Topic	Quote
Health		Comparative research on language development in children with normal hearing, children with hearing impairment who use hearing aids, deaf children with cochlear implants, and deaf children using American Sign Language should be conducted. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

Expression	Frequency per Day
american sign language	1,302
american sign language dictionary	92
american sign language alphabet	43
learn american sign language	17
learning american sign language	13
american sign language online	10
american sign language class	10
american sign language course	9
native american sign language	7
american sign language interpreter	6
child american sign language	3
asl american sign language	3
instant immersion american sign language	2
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

American Sign Language

Definition: American Sign Language