From: jarvis@psych.toronto.edu (Brian Jarvis)
Subject: Re: Is sign language recognized anywhere?
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 17:40:46 GMT

In article <BxGGwM.LvK@ireq.hydro.qc.ca> beaurega@ireq.hydro.qc.ca (Denis Beauregard) writes:
>
>Just to give you some indication about autonomy of ASL.
>Quebec has LSQ (langage des sourds du Quebec).  Perhaps the same
>alphabet, but I think it is different.  No idea if they share the
>same "ideographics" words.  Japanese has a large alphabet of 80
>characters and embeds some chinese ideograms, but I am not sure
>if they are the same.  Similarly, I don't know if ASL and LSQ
>have similar short cuts.  If they don't, then this would explain
>why ASL is considered as a way to speak English and not as a separate
>language.

ASL is most definitely *NOT* a graphical subset of English.  A previous
poster mentioned something about ASL being a visual representation of
English because it can use the same written English format.  This is again
incorrect:  the preferred recorded version of ASL is videotape, NOT
written text.

If you're looking for a graphical subset of English, take signed English.
Signed English is *NOT* ASL.  (Personal editorial:  signed English is 
perhaps one of the greatest examples of linguistic chauvinism still
pummelled in our supposedly enlightened society.  If you want to find a
majority culture imposing an alien language structure upon a minority,
look no further.  Editorial off.)

ASL signs tend to be tied very closely to the visual appearance of the object
in question.  Styles, colouration and modelling  vary greatly from culture
to culture.  Example:  the old ASL sign for "male" described the brim of
a hat.  Brimmed hats aren't as much a part of western culture as they used
to be and are rarer yet in many other non-western cultures.  The old sign
for "female" described a bonnet strap; try that one in the Middle East.

Fingerspelling is a significant part, but by no means a majority of ASL.
It's a convenient notation to describe new words or proper names until
the participants in the conversation assign a name-sign to the object,
an event which usually follows in the ensuing 10 seconds or so.  The notation
is a convenience, not a necessity.  Any other alphabetic system could be
learned and substituted into ASL if desired because ASL is *not* tied
to a particular written form and is *not* a subset of the language from
which the alphabet is borrowed.

Vocabulary aside, the sentence structure and syntax of ASL is quite
distinct from English, just as, say, German sentence structure is distinct
from French.  For example:

English:			Where can I find a telephone?
(English-transcribed) ASL:	telephone where?
English:			My cousin's boyfriend owns a truck.
(English-transcribed) ASL:	my (female cousin) (her (boyfriend))(has truck)

The above examples also explain why there is no single universal language
for the deaf:  the signs are strongly affected by culture and custom of
the region.  Different cultures evolve different stylings and identification
signs.  There can be overlap:  I've been told that several different sign
languages use the same sign for "tree", but my experience is that precious
few use the same for "apple", if indeed one exists in that language.

Enough ranting for now.

Brian
-- 

Brian A. Jarvis,          Rm. 4026, Sidney Smith Hall, Dept. of Psychology,
jarvis@psych.toronto.edu  University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
System Administrator      M5S 1A1  (416) 978-3948
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