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Should ASL be standardized as the universal primary language for Deaf…
Should ASL be standardized as the universal primary language for Deaf people?
Sign languages are independent from
the spoken language they tend to coexist
with. Ex: ASL is not signed English.
ASL is its own official language with its own grammatical rules and word order. It has its own culture too.There are even different dialects in different parts of the country just as we see in spoken languages (English ex: soda/pop/soda pop/coke/etc).
Variations exist in spoken and
signed languages. Standardization
would affect that.
Regional, age, gender, education, family background, social factors, ethnicity, register, and lexical are all things that can affect variation in sign languages.
I wouldn't say it's a good idea to standardize ASL to the point that there is one sign and one sign only for any one concept. Natural variation exists in any language based on aforementioned factors, just as they do in spoken languages. So an opinion based on current research says yes we should loosely standardize ASL and make it universal.
WFD says deleting foreign signs,
unifying signs, and replacing old signs
with new ones isn't something they support
and I think I agree with that.
Standardization tends to mean one sign for
one concept. this is the
right
sign but in the
context of this paper, that is not what
is being discussed.
ASL is still a living language and
standardization or making it a
universal sign language wouldn't
change that.
People in the Philippines tend to use Filipino Sign Language but that is said to be very similar to American Sign Language so there are presumably some differences, but it also means that some probably use ASL too.
They also use SEE in
Philippine Schools for the Deaf.
Many people believe that sign language is universal and it never even occurs to them that different countries have different sign languages too. When people begin to learn, that is one of the most surprising things.
There are actually at least 142 according to Ethnologue Languages of the World, but the true number is likely over 300 different sign languages around the world. Many countries even use more than one. Places like Canada are an example; some parts of Canada use ASL while other use French Sign Language. Some small remote villages have even developed their own systems of signing that are not considered formal.
A fun fact is that countries that use the same spoken language sometimes don't use the same signed language. For example, both Spain and Mexico speak Spanish but Spain uses Spanish sign language while Mexico used Mexican sign language.
ASL has a one-handed manual alphabet, but BSL, and many other signed languages, have a two-handed one and they are vastly different. This is interesting because both America and the UK predominantly speak English.
While most countries have their own sign languages, some still do use ASL. There are parts of West Africa that use it and some parts of Southeast Asia as well.
Why isn't there a
universal sign language?
Sign languages develop naturally.
They are culturally influenced. It
would be similar to having the same
spoken language worldwide.
There was a time in which there was an attempt to have an international spoken language and an international signed language. The spoken one was called Esperanto and the signed was called Gestuno. These communication systems were invented; they did not evolve. The languages that evolved naturally are the ones that prevailed.
Languages develop through human interaction; they are not invented.
While sign language is not international, there are some signs that are much more iconic - depict images - than other signs and they can be used across language barriers at times.