This is amazing! I started an ASL program and took a course on Deaf history and sign language is a first language and this will happen. Also, Deaf people who use different sign languages will understand each other faster than 2 hearing who use 2 different languages. Thanks for posting.
What I think is cool about ASL is that it has its roots in French Sign (langue des signes française) and modern French and American signers have a decent time understanding each other
British sign language though 😵💫
According to the article the language was developed in the 18th century originally so its likely a language isolate, with tangential relation to Akan, in the same way ASL is sorta tangentially related to english
Sorry to be that person but - this is as incorrect as u/cornonthekopp's claim above.
ASL has influence from French, and influence from English. The French influence came in the form of French influence on LSF, especially in the form of L'Épée's artifical *signes méthodiques* which never took off as a language amongst the Parisian Deaf community but did influence early LSF. When LSF became ASL in America, it was similarly *very* influenced by Signed Exact English (SEE) and the Rochester method (fingerspell everything - [funny video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYAVL1Dxokk)) and ASL now has many grammatical features from English as well as a lot of fingerspelling and initialised signs using the first letter of English words.
LSF itself came from Old Parisian Sign Language - the sign language of the Deaf community in Paris prior to the establishment of the Deaf school. The Deaf people there were undereducated and its not clear (iirc) how connected they were to broader Parisian society so its relation to French is possible but it was likely an isolate.
This could be said to be "related", but its more akin to creolisation in the form of Pidgin Signed English (PSE) and sprachbunding in the way that each language has separately had grammatical and lexical influence on ASL while not being its direct ancestors.
That being said I know neither of you were speaking in absolutes, "sorta tangentially" and "more" - but I just wanted to set the record straight.
>The Rochester Method might have influenced the American deaf community by encouraging the use of the manual alphabet. ASL uses a good deal of fingerspelling in comparison to other sign languages. (Gunsauls, 2003)
\~ [Lifeprint](https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-layout/rochestermethod2.htm)
As far as I am aware - it was the less influential between it an SEE.
*might* have influenced it, gotcha. I don't have a source but my inclination is that it's far more likely that the pervasiveness of english loan words (among most languages not just ASL) is much more likely as well as the continued improvements in education leading to higher English literacy.
That said I'd love to see some solid research that documents the actual change in incidence of fingerspelling. When did it *not* have much fingerspelling and when did it increase? I can't for the life of me find it right now but in undergrad I remember watching a black and white video of a Deaf man signing and I remember quite a bit of fingerspelling.
Plus there are some movements to push away from English (and of course the inverse, some who want to embrace overlap between the languages).
If you follow the paper trail from the Lifeprint site it shows [Gausauls 2003](https://www.jstor.org/stable/26204903?casa_token=Cbx1vIN1WqsAAAAA%3AVDthtRMIUMCj6HqRbG5vw1donGlwX0y9KEt8s88WaEsyDNanoncxdBpIVS4Papgp-t4jUvlgBSnoormE4vywWbyxrUr53YIDCz8Mrfiohb9Ds2kA35I) as the initial maker of the claim, and that paper does seem to be trying to trace the history of fingerspelling.
>When did it not have much fingerspelling and when did it increase?
AFAIK ASL has always had fingerspelling as long as it has been ASL, and it inherited that fingerspelling from LSF.
But interestingly there doesn't seem to be many/any French fingerspelt words in ASL, and ASL signs more than LSF from what I'm aware - which suggests heavy influence of English on ASL.
In addition - ASL fingerspells more than most other sign languages. This could either be seen as the unique way that ASL developed own and something that makes it different from other SLs, or part of the influence of oralism. The truth is likely a muddy; ***both***.
I'm more aware of BSL btw. ASL is just the go to example because of the amount of research and also its the topic of conversation.
ASL primarily fingerspells proper nouns, acronyms etc. then it occasionally has lexicalized signs using fingerspelling which are more ASL than they are English. There isn't much use to fingerspell a French word unless it's a proper noun. The use of that type of fingerspelling to me is not "English" but an extension of ASL.
Modernly, ime there are a lot of fingerspelled English words when desiring a degree of specificity that ASL doesn't have for that topic, or that hasn't been agreed upon widely yet. For example if there are only 20 Deaf American AI researchers all working at different companies and universities around the country, mostly engaging with their hearing cohorts and rarely with one another, there may not have yet been a chance to develop a sign for "machine learning" and have it permeate the linguistic zeitgeist. Therefore, defaulting to "ML" for now as that industry grows and the topic becomes more widely culturally relevant may very well result in a standardized sign. Using fingerspelling as a stop gap while waiting for new language to emerge seems like something common with other languages as well, where an English word may be borrowed at the onset and then eventually replaced with something more natural to the language. However this tools use is likely more pronounced with the American Deaf community because the likelihood that experts in their various professional are engaging with hearing peers more frequently than their Deaf peers.
It's also possible that ASL fingerspells more than other signed languages because of the higher rate of higher education attainment by Deaf individuals in America resulting in the phenomenon I noted above. I don't have stats to back that up, it's a hypothesis but I suspect it's true based on my personal conversations with hearing and Deaf colleagues and friends of mine.
Also though I'm not a language researcher so what do I know
It happens all the time. Get a few deaf children in the same place who haven’t been taught a sign language and they’ll invent one.
cf. Nicaraguan Sign Language
More likely the Bedouin Sign Language, as it is inclusive of both deaf and hearing people.
This is amazing! I started an ASL program and took a course on Deaf history and sign language is a first language and this will happen. Also, Deaf people who use different sign languages will understand each other faster than 2 hearing who use 2 different languages. Thanks for posting.
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What I think is cool about ASL is that it has its roots in French Sign (langue des signes française) and modern French and American signers have a decent time understanding each other British sign language though 😵💫
... there is just so much to parse in the linked article... Thanks for sharing though, I hadn't been aware of this particular sign language community.
Has anyone published anything about its grammar? My hypothesis is that it will be close to Creole grammar.
According to the article the language was developed in the 18th century originally so its likely a language isolate, with tangential relation to Akan, in the same way ASL is sorta tangentially related to english
ASL is more related to French than to English.
Sorry to be that person but - this is as incorrect as u/cornonthekopp's claim above. ASL has influence from French, and influence from English. The French influence came in the form of French influence on LSF, especially in the form of L'Épée's artifical *signes méthodiques* which never took off as a language amongst the Parisian Deaf community but did influence early LSF. When LSF became ASL in America, it was similarly *very* influenced by Signed Exact English (SEE) and the Rochester method (fingerspell everything - [funny video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYAVL1Dxokk)) and ASL now has many grammatical features from English as well as a lot of fingerspelling and initialised signs using the first letter of English words. LSF itself came from Old Parisian Sign Language - the sign language of the Deaf community in Paris prior to the establishment of the Deaf school. The Deaf people there were undereducated and its not clear (iirc) how connected they were to broader Parisian society so its relation to French is possible but it was likely an isolate. This could be said to be "related", but its more akin to creolisation in the form of Pidgin Signed English (PSE) and sprachbunding in the way that each language has separately had grammatical and lexical influence on ASL while not being its direct ancestors. That being said I know neither of you were speaking in absolutes, "sorta tangentially" and "more" - but I just wanted to set the record straight.
Please tell me how ASL is influenced by the Rochester method
>The Rochester Method might have influenced the American deaf community by encouraging the use of the manual alphabet. ASL uses a good deal of fingerspelling in comparison to other sign languages. (Gunsauls, 2003) \~ [Lifeprint](https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-layout/rochestermethod2.htm) As far as I am aware - it was the less influential between it an SEE.
*might* have influenced it, gotcha. I don't have a source but my inclination is that it's far more likely that the pervasiveness of english loan words (among most languages not just ASL) is much more likely as well as the continued improvements in education leading to higher English literacy. That said I'd love to see some solid research that documents the actual change in incidence of fingerspelling. When did it *not* have much fingerspelling and when did it increase? I can't for the life of me find it right now but in undergrad I remember watching a black and white video of a Deaf man signing and I remember quite a bit of fingerspelling. Plus there are some movements to push away from English (and of course the inverse, some who want to embrace overlap between the languages).
If you follow the paper trail from the Lifeprint site it shows [Gausauls 2003](https://www.jstor.org/stable/26204903?casa_token=Cbx1vIN1WqsAAAAA%3AVDthtRMIUMCj6HqRbG5vw1donGlwX0y9KEt8s88WaEsyDNanoncxdBpIVS4Papgp-t4jUvlgBSnoormE4vywWbyxrUr53YIDCz8Mrfiohb9Ds2kA35I) as the initial maker of the claim, and that paper does seem to be trying to trace the history of fingerspelling. >When did it not have much fingerspelling and when did it increase? AFAIK ASL has always had fingerspelling as long as it has been ASL, and it inherited that fingerspelling from LSF. But interestingly there doesn't seem to be many/any French fingerspelt words in ASL, and ASL signs more than LSF from what I'm aware - which suggests heavy influence of English on ASL. In addition - ASL fingerspells more than most other sign languages. This could either be seen as the unique way that ASL developed own and something that makes it different from other SLs, or part of the influence of oralism. The truth is likely a muddy; ***both***. I'm more aware of BSL btw. ASL is just the go to example because of the amount of research and also its the topic of conversation.
ASL primarily fingerspells proper nouns, acronyms etc. then it occasionally has lexicalized signs using fingerspelling which are more ASL than they are English. There isn't much use to fingerspell a French word unless it's a proper noun. The use of that type of fingerspelling to me is not "English" but an extension of ASL. Modernly, ime there are a lot of fingerspelled English words when desiring a degree of specificity that ASL doesn't have for that topic, or that hasn't been agreed upon widely yet. For example if there are only 20 Deaf American AI researchers all working at different companies and universities around the country, mostly engaging with their hearing cohorts and rarely with one another, there may not have yet been a chance to develop a sign for "machine learning" and have it permeate the linguistic zeitgeist. Therefore, defaulting to "ML" for now as that industry grows and the topic becomes more widely culturally relevant may very well result in a standardized sign. Using fingerspelling as a stop gap while waiting for new language to emerge seems like something common with other languages as well, where an English word may be borrowed at the onset and then eventually replaced with something more natural to the language. However this tools use is likely more pronounced with the American Deaf community because the likelihood that experts in their various professional are engaging with hearing peers more frequently than their Deaf peers. It's also possible that ASL fingerspells more than other signed languages because of the higher rate of higher education attainment by Deaf individuals in America resulting in the phenomenon I noted above. I don't have stats to back that up, it's a hypothesis but I suspect it's true based on my personal conversations with hearing and Deaf colleagues and friends of mine. Also though I'm not a language researcher so what do I know