Sign Language has been around for centuries, where it was used as communication between those who did not speak the same language. The Great Plains Indians used signing as a way of communicating with others that spoke different languages. It is not known whether or not the Great Plains Indians had any influence on today's sign language or not.
One who did influence today's ASL (American Sign Language) was Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. He was a congressional minister who developed an interest in sign language to learn how to communicate with a neighbor's deaf daughter, Alice Cogswell. Gallaudet took a trip to Europe in the early 1800s for education on the subject.
While in Europe, Gallaudet convinced a deaf professor by the name of Laurent Clerc to accompany him back to America. Together, in 1817, they founded the American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb in Hartford, Connecticut. Laurent Clerc became the first deaf sign language professor in America. Later the American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb would become the American School for the Deaf.
The island known as Martha's Vineyard, which is off the coast of Massachusetts, had an abnormally large population of deaf people in the 18th century. Because of the islands deaf people, the islanders developed their own form of sign language called Martha's Vineyard Sign Language. Therefore, since most of the students that attended the American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb were from Martha's Vineyard this also had much influence on today's sign language.
Once the first students at the American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb graduated, some went on to found schools of their own. By 1863, there were a total of twenty-two schools teaching ASL throughout North America. A school for the deaf was opened in 1864 in Washington D.C. This school remains to this day the only liberal arts school for the deaf in the world.
It was interesting to find out that when sign language was just beginning, it was discouraged. There were many people who did not even consider signing to be a language. It was even thought to be wrong for someone to use signing in an informal manner, but often you could find deaf friends signing to each other discreetly. Could you imagine being deaf and the only form of communication you have, you are not allowed to use?
It was discovered in 1979 that most deaf students who dropped out of school could only read at an 8-year-old reading level. This means they could not read tabloids, governmental forms or even instruction manuals. It also seemed that they had not developed any kind of speech or a lip reading skill beyond that of a hearing person.
With a mix of Old French Sign Language and Martha's Vineyard Sign Language, American Sign Language was born into existence. What's interesting is that even though Americans and French do not share the same language, like the British and the Americans do, the FSL and the ASL share more than half of the same vocabulary in sign language, whereas the British and the American's sign language vocabulary are almost completely different.
