- published: 13 Oct 2012
- views: 2803989
American Sign Language (ASL) is a sign language, a language in which the hands, arms, head, facial expression and body language are used to speak without sound. ASL is not related to English, and features an entirely different grammar and vocabulary. In the 1960s, ASL was sometimes referred to as "Ameslan" but this term is now obsolete.
ASL is the dominant sign language of deaf communities in the United States and English-speaking parts of Canada. Although the United Kingdom and the United States / Canada share English as a common oral and written language, British Sign Language (BSL) is a completely different language from ASL, and they are not mutually intelligible. ASL is instead related to French Sign Language.
Besides North America, dialects of ASL or ASL-based creoles are used, sometimes alongside indigenous sign languages, in the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Chad, Gabon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Mauritania, Kenya, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Barbados, Bolivia, China, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica. Like other sign languages, its grammar and syntax are distinct from any spoken language, including English.