AMERICAN SIGN
LANGUAGE
HISTORY
• CALLED AS AMELSAN
• It is the dominant sign language of deaf
Americans, including deaf communities in
United States in the English speaking parts of
Canada.
• The hearing families with deaf children have
historically employed home sign, idiosyncratic
system of hand gestures that do not amount to
full language for rudimentary communication
• It is like many other languages has undergone
many transformations through out history.
• ASL stems from the first known sign language
system, which was discovered in France during
mid 18th century.
• This system was also known as ‘Old French
Sign Language’
• In 1815, Thomas Hopkins Gallandet visited Europe,
to investigate methods of teaching deaf. But
Braidwood schools refused to share their oral
method of teaching.
• While in London (England) Gallandet met with Abbe
Sicard, Director of the Royal Institute for the Deaf in
Paris
• He learned the educational methods with sign
language which is taught in Paris (France).
• In 1817, he initiated the American school for Deaf.
• Deaf students were taught French signs and
brought in signs of their own.
• Because of the influence of the sign language
of France upon the school, the vocabularies of
American sign Language and modern French
sign Language are Approximately 60% shared.
• Many graduates of this school went on to find
schools of their own in many other states thus
expanding and standardizing the language.
• ASL has its own syntactic, semantic and
configuration rules.
• Grammatical features include directional
verbs, classifiers, sequential aspect
• The signs associated with ASL possess 4
identifying physical characteristics
– Hand configuration
– Movement
– Location
– Orientation
Stokoe (1978) reported there are
- 19 handshapes
- 12 locations
- 24 movements
• Stokoe etal. (1965) referred ASL as
‘Cheremes’ – Most basic and visually distinct
units of sign language.
• Features of ASL include facial expressions,
head tilts, body movements and eye gazes.
• Over 6,000 signs are used and more manuals
are available
Indian sign language
History
• Early in 12th century, gestures were used by
the deaf people for communication.
• Early in the 20th century, a high incidence of
deafness was observed among communities
of NAGA hills.
• Serious attempts to study Indian sign language
began in 1977 (Vashistha, Woodward &
Wilson).
• In 1975, Vashistha sent a questionnaire to the
heads of 117 schools for the deaf in India.
• “ All had collection of gestures” rather than
signs.
• Vashistha, Woodward & Wilson (1980) with
partial support from National Science
foundation and collected signs from 4 major
Urban centers (Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay and
Bangalore).
• They found ISL in its own right and is
indigenous to the Indian subcontinent.
• They found that there were differences in the way
these signs were translated.
• In each of these signs the grammar of the signs
were influenced by the spoken language
• Subsequent effort by Vashistha et al. between
1977 and 1982 returned in 4 dictionaries of ISL.
• In 2001, another dictionary was published
by the Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya in
Coimbatore
indiansignlanguage.org
http://www.talkinghands.co.in/sentence
• Mani et al. (2000) developed dictionary for
the sign language in India
• It had line drawings without any description of
the way how the signs had to be used.
• These were complex signs which was difficult
to interpret
• These signs were given in an alphabetical
order so it was difficult for a person to learn
• Mani etal (2000) came up with another
dictionary called ISL dictionary.
• Line drawings are categorized on specific
concepts like colors, body parts, family
members etc.
• This was comparatively easier
• Unlike the earlier manual the signs used in this
depicts the once that are used across the
country.
• Sign languages are NOT the same all over the
world.
• Sign languages are NOT just gestures and
pantomime, but do have their own grammar.
• Sign languages are NOT dependent on spoken
languages and do not resemble spoken
languages used in the same region.
• Sign languages are NOT “languages of the
hands” only, but use non-manual expressions
as well.
• It is claimed that a rural Indian Sign Language
(RISL) also exists and it is very different from
the ISL included in Vasishta et al’s dictionaries
