Essay On American Sign Language

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In the U.S. the fourth most common language is American Sign Language. American Sign Language or ASL is a way of communication for those who are deaf or hard of hearing. As common as this language is, many people know nothing about it so i decided to open myself to this challenge. I decided to dedicate myself to this topic and learn as much information on this language. I wanted to open myself up to a whole new community just like i had in learning Spanish and French. I wanted to take the next few months and learn as much as possible about something that i honestly knew nothing about. So what is American Sign Language? How much can i learn in 3 months?

During my 3rd grade year my teacher had taught us some hand signals in order to answer …show more content…

Gallaudet died his youngest son, Edward Miner Gallaudet went to become a teacher at the American School for the deaf in Hartford. Edward’s dream was to open the first deaf college. In 1857 Edward went to the superintendent of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind, which was in Washington DC, and was able to convince him to help him open the first deaf university. In 1864, Edward’s dream came true and he was able to open the National Deaf-Mute College, the first college for the deaf. Years later in 1986 the college was renamed to Gallaudet University who is known as the first and only deaf university in the world. And it located in Washington D.C.(Start ASL, …show more content…

When children are born and as they grow most of what they learn to speak is from hearing their parents talk but what if they couldn 't hear? How would they learn? Its pretty simple actually. They wouldn 't learn. Those who were born hearing but got sick or eventually lost their hearing learned a few things and use them but, eventually they turn to ASL to be able to communicate with others and be able to further their education. When having to learn this language you have to keep many things in mind such as handshape, palm orientation, location, movement and facial expression, all of those things are crucial to being able to speak this language correctly. While this language has been around for many years there are still things that don 't have an ASL name and in those cases you would do something called finger spelling, where you spell out what you are trying to say in order to get your point across.(Learning Sign Language,2) As every language you are learning a whole different way of saying things and you are also opening yourself to those who can’t really open themselves to you. The deaf community do really try to not be a burden to us. They learn to read lips or even talk because they were forced to. A couple a years ago they were restricted from learning ASL and were punished if they tried to sign. (About sign

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