Essay About Deaf People And American Sign Language

American Sign Language Is a Language
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ASL is a Language Summary paper.
Language is a socially shared code that uses conventional system of arbitrary symbols to
represent ideas about the world that are meaningful to those to those who share the code. It
means that language is governed by a system, there is grammar and certain rules (you cant
say ahmed name is salman my).In order to be understood you say it in a grammatically correct
sentence and the rules are defined and understood by all speakers of English. And only those
will understand who know the same code (language). Like if I talk to John in Urdu he will not
understand. Or if a Spaniard talks to a Chinese in Spanish, there will be a communication gap
because both of them do not share the same code i.e. same language. There was a misconception
that ASL (or any sign language) is not a language. It is a set of gestures that the deaf people have
developed themselves. But researches have proved that it is a complete language and is governed
by rules (grammar) just like spoken language. ASL is one of the modalities of language, the only
difference is that instead of speech one uses sign to express. The purpose of this essay would be
to proof that ASL is a language too.
I will be discussing few things that occurred in the history of American Sign Language.
In the year 1770, a deaf book binder named Pierre Desolges who hailed from Persia,
wrote “Observations of a deaf Mute”, the purpose of his book was to explain the signs used by
deaf Persians. In the late 17th century, a deaf school was set up in Paris, France. It was known
that the French community had two different kinds of signing systems at that time. Allowing the
French Children to achieve education created a large French deaf community. Earlier in 1690s,
on American soil, Martha Vineyard which is an island had a community which was hearing but
because they were many deaf citizens, almost everyone was able to communicate through a form
of sign language which was known as Martha Vineyard Sign Language. This community was
one the most stable societies for the deaf and hearing citizens in America. The size ratio varied
greatly between deaf and hearing citizens. In terms of birth rates of deaf to hard hearing was 1 to
155 in the 1800s on the island alone while National ratio was 1 to 2730. This community only
existed for 2 centuries and perished with the demise of the last native born deaf Islander in the e
year 1950s. Martha Vineyard is now tourist attraction venue, but will always remain a
foundation of pride in the history deaf communities but in the development process of ASL, it
played a minor role. During the heydays of America, there were no advocates for education
using Sign language so this factor forced parents of deaf children to search for educational
institutions in Europe where they specialize in deaf education. In 1815, Thomas Gaulladet,