ASL – American Sign Language
- ASL has over 271,000 first language users, 250,000 of which live in the US
- Unlike BSL, has a one-handed fingerspelling system, derived from French Sign Language
- ASL has some sign and lexical variation depending on region (and therefore the sign language that is used most commonly there). However, like BSL, this does not affect their ability to communicate with each other
- Whilst not officially recognised as a language throughout America, some regions have laws which state ASL to be a foreign language, or even a language used for educational purposes (for the deaf)
Sentence Structure
ASL uses multiple different word orders:
- Subject, Verb, then Object – used most frequently in general conversation. Whilst similar to English, ASL does not utilise BE words such as am, is, are.
- Time, Subject, Verb, then Object