American Sign Language

American Sign Language is a natural visual–gestural language used by many Deaf and hard-of-hearing people, as well as hearing relatives, educators, interpreters, and other members of signing communities. ASL is expressed through handshapes, movements, locations, orientations, facial expressions, and body posture. Its grammar is independent of spoken English: sentence structure, agreement, question formation, and discourse organization follow ASL patterns rather than English word order.¹

Meaning can be distributed across several channels at once. A raised eyebrow may mark a yes–no question, while head movement, gaze, or a change in signing space can establish emphasis, topic, or reference. Signs are not universal; ASL differs substantially from British Sign Language, despite the countries' shared spoken language, while ASL has influenced or contributed to signing systems in parts of West Africa and Southeast Asia.²

ASL emerged from contact among local signing traditions, French Sign Language, and the signing practices brought to the first permanent American school for deaf students. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet traveled to Europe in 1815 and recruited Laurent Clerc, a teacher from the Royal Institution for Deaf-Mutes in Paris; together they helped establish the American School for the Deaf in Hartford in 1817.³

Residential schools became major sites for the transmission and development of ASL, connecting children from families that might otherwise have had little access to a shared language. The 1880 Congress of Milan promoted oral education over signed instruction internationally, and many American schools subsequently restricted signing. Deaf communities nevertheless maintained ASL through peer networks, clubs, associations, churches, and publications. The 1960s linguistic work of William Stokoe provided influential evidence that ASL possessed systematic linguistic structure rather than being a collection of gestures.

ASL supports everyday conversation, storytelling, education, artistic performance, public life, and specialized professional communication. It is acquired naturally by some children from Deaf signing parents, but many Deaf children are born to hearing parents and may encounter ASL later through schools, early-intervention programs, or Deaf community institutions. This variation makes access to fluent language during childhood a major educational and developmental concern.

English and ASL can coexist in bilingual education, although signing systems designed to represent English word-for-word are distinct from native ASL. Interpreters convey communication between ASL and spoken or written languages in classrooms, courts, hospitals, workplaces, and media. In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act supports effective communication and accessibility, while legal obligations vary by setting and jurisdiction.⁴

ASL is not uniform across North America: vocabulary, pronunciation-like parameters, and signing styles vary by region, age, school history, race, and social network. Black Deaf communities have developed distinctive traditions and varieties shaped by segregation in American education; the history of Black ASL is increasingly documented as an important part of the language's social history.⁵

ASL also has specialized registers, including forms used in science, law, religion, theater, and online video. Fingerspelling represents letters with manual alphabets and is useful for names, technical terms, and words without an established sign, but it is not the same as spelling every English word in conversation. In Canada, ASL is widely used in English-speaking regions, while Quebec Sign Language and other local signing practices reflect Canada's multilingual and regional landscape.²

Deaf community

A cultural and linguistic community whose members may share signed language, institutions, history, and social identity; deafness is not understood solely as a medical condition in this usage.

Fingerspelling

The representation of written-language letters by distinct handshapes, commonly used in ASL for names, abbreviations, and unfamiliar terms.

Manualism

An educational approach that uses signed communication, in contrast to oralism, which emphasizes speech and speechreading.

Black ASL

Varieties and cultural practices of ASL associated with Black Deaf communities, shaped in part by historically segregated schools and social networks.