American Sign Language Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids American Sign Language
Langue des Signes Américaine (in the Canadian province of Québec)

Native to	United States, Canada
Region	English-speaking North America
Native speakers	250,000–500,000 in the United States (1972) L2 users: Used as L2 by many hearing people and by Hawaii Sign Language speakers.
Language family	French Sign-based (possibly a creole with Martha's Vineyard Sign Language) American Sign Language
Dialects	African-American Sign Bolivian Sign Costa Rican Sign Ghanaian Sign Nigerian Sign Francophone African Sign Québec Sign
Writing system	None are widely accepted si5s (ASLwrite), ASL-phabet, Stokoe notation, SignWriting
Official status
Official language in	none
Recognised minority language in	Ontario only in domains of: legislation, education and judiciary proceedings. 40 US states recognize ASL to varying degrees, from a foreign language for school credits to the official language of that state's deaf population.
Areas where ASL or a dialect/derivative thereof is the national sign language Areas where ASL is in significant use alongside another sign language

American Sign Language (ASL) is the most popular sign language for Deaf people in the United States. It is also used in English-speaking parts of Canada and some areas of Mexico. Even though the United Kingdom and the United States both speak English, British Sign Language (BSL) is very different from ASL.

ASL actually comes from French Sign Language. This happened because Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet traveled to Europe to learn how to teach deaf students. He found help in France and brought a French teacher, Laurent Clerc, back to the U.S. to start the first school for the Deaf.

ASL is also used in many other countries around the world. These include the Philippines, Singapore, Dominican Republic, and several countries in Africa. Like other sign languages, ASL has its own unique grammar rules. These rules are different from those of spoken languages.

ASL includes Fingerspelling. This is a way to spell out words using hand shapes for each letter of the alphabet. ASL uses one hand to show the English alphabet. Fingerspelling is often used for names of people and places. It is also helpful for words that do not have a specific sign, or when people are unsure what a sign means.

The Story of ASL
How Many People Use ASL?
Images for kids
See also

The Story of ASL

Early Sign Languages

Before ASL was created, people in the United States used different forms of sign language. For example, the Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains used a sign language to talk with each other. This was useful because they spoke many different spoken languages.

In the 1800s, some villages in New England had their own sign languages. One important one was Martha's Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL). This language was used on Martha's Vineyard, an island in Massachusetts. Many people on the island were born deaf due to a genetic condition. Because of this, both deaf and hearing people on Martha's Vineyard used MVSL. They used it in daily life, during church, or even to communicate between boats at sea.

How ASL Began

American Sign Language is believed to have started at the American School for the Deaf (ASD). This school was founded in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1817. It was started by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, who was a Yale graduate. Gallaudet was inspired by a young deaf girl named Alice Cogswell. He wanted to learn the best ways to teach deaf students.

Gallaudet traveled to Europe and chose to learn from a famous school for the deaf in Paris, France. He convinced Laurent Clerc, a teacher from that school, to come back to the United States with him. Together, they opened the American School for the Deaf.

Students from places like Martha's Vineyard brought their own village sign languages to the new school. Laurent Clerc taught using French Sign Language (LSF). From this mix of different sign languages, a new language was born. This new language is what we now call ASL.

Spreading ASL

After the first school, more schools for the deaf were opened across the country. This helped ASL spread widely. Also, groups like the National Association of the Deaf held meetings that brought signers together from all over. This helped ASL become a widely used language across a large area.

For a long time, some people thought sign language was not a "real" language. They preferred teaching deaf students to speak and read lips (this was called "oralism"). However, a linguist named William Stokoe changed this idea. In the 1960s, Stokoe showed that ASL has all the important features of a true language. He even created a system to write down ASL signs. His work helped ASL get the recognition it deserved. It also changed how deaf education and language studies were done.

How Many People Use ASL?

It is hard to count exactly how many people use ASL. The American census has never directly counted ASL users. The best estimates come from a 1972 study. This study suggested that between 250,000 and 500,000 people in the United States use sign language. This number includes ASL and other forms of signing.

Sometimes, you might hear much larger numbers for ASL users, like 15 million. These numbers are usually incorrect. They often confuse the total number of deaf people with the number of ASL users. Also, ASL is sometimes wrongly called the third or fourth most spoken language in the U.S. This idea comes from a misunderstanding of a report that said ASL speakers were the third largest group needing an interpreter in court.

Images for kids

A sign language interpreter at a presentation
An American Sign Language Convention in Austin, Texas
The ASL phrase "American Sign Language", written in Stokoe notation
The ASL phrase "American Sign Language", written in Sutton SignWriting
ASL signs for counting
Comparison of ASL writing systems. Sutton SignWriting is on the left, followed by Si5s, then Stokoe notation in the center, with SignFont and its simplified derivation ASL-phabet on the right.
Two men and a woman signing

American Sign Language facts for kids

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