RP210 Talking With Your Hands

 RP210 Talking With Your Hands

Humans are social beings, driven to communicate. When the usual means of communicating—listening and talking—don't work, humans find another way. For deaf people, this is sign language.

Sign languages have been used since ancient times, but the first free school for deaf people wasn't founded until 1775, when one opened in France. Soon after, a public school for the deaf opened in Germany. More popped up, using different signs and philosophies.

In 1815, the American Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet traveled to Europe to learn how to educate deaf people. He studied in France and returned to the United States to found the first school for the deaf in America, the Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons, in 1817. It's now called the American School for the Deaf. It was at this school that American Sign Language (ASL) emerged out of the combination of French Sign Language and signs the students had brought with them (particularly from Martha's Vineyard, a place in Massachusetts with a sign language of its own). Because of the strong French influence, ASL and modern French Sign Language share more than half of their vocabulary.

ASL communicates ideas very differently than spoken languages do. Each sign contains five elements: the shape of the hand, the direction of the palm, the location of the hand, the movement of the hand, and cues like facial expression, posture, or moving one's mouth. All these elements affect signs' meanings. Facial expression is very important, too, as it adds emotion. Making a sign for an emotion without expressing that emotion in your face can be sarcastic in ASL. Movements and expressions affect both grammar and issues like stress, intonation, and the flow of a conversation.

Amazingly, though ASL has existed for about 200 years, ASL's grammar has only been studied since the 1960s. Hearing people still have a lot to learn about this uncommon form of human communication.