Lesson 01 American Sign Language (ASL)

Lesson 1

Objectives:

___ I am able to define the term ASL
___ I know the common handshapes used in ASL.
___ I am able to fingerspell my name in ASL
___ I am able to count to five in ASL (numbers)
___ I am able to briefly describe the history of ASL
___ I am able to briefly state the gist of Deaf Culture
___ I have a basic idea of the meaning of the difference between ASL and Signed English
___ I have a basic idea of the meaning of Pidgin (contact signing)
___ I am able to recognize and sign the vocabulary for this lesson (see below)
___ I am able to recognize and sign the practice sentences for this lesson (see below)
___ I have done a practice quiz
___ I have checked with my instructor regarding how and where to take any graded quizzes.

Dear ASL Heroes,
Allow me to share with you this bit of information from an article in Perspectives in Education and Deafness:

"There are more than 500,000 words in the English language, but a person who masters only 250 words will recognize more than two-thirds of all words shown in television captions—provided the 250 words are those that are most frequently used. Equally dramatic, a beginning reader could be taught just 10 words—the, you, to, a, I, and, of, in, it, that—and then recognize more than one out of every five words. Mastery of the top 79 words means being able to read half of all words captioned." (Source: Perspectives in Education and Deafness, Volume 16, Number 1, September/October 1997)

What if we were to apply that same concept (word frequency) to learning sign language?
The main series of lessons in the ASL University curriculum are based on accelerated language acquisition techniques that make use of "word frequency" research. (What are the most common concepts and words used in everyday communication?)
I took the most frequently used concepts and translated them into their ASL equivalents and embedded them into the lessons starting with the highest frequency of use language concepts.
Thus the lessons are designed to help a student reach communicative competence very quickly-- based on science combined with over two decades of real world teaching experience.
The order in which content is introduced is a balance between "functions" (what you want to do or accomplish) and "language frequency" (what you most often say to others to accomplish those functions). Thus while some of the lessons may seem to be random, in actuality each vocabulary concept was specifically selected to expedite (speed up) the rate at which you can actually use the language for everyday communication tasks.
-- Dr. Bill

Vocabulary:
Note: these are not English words, they are labels for sign concepts--many of which have several different meanings--depending on context and inflection.

INDEXING:
Just point at the person or thing: HE/SHE/IT/ME/YOU/THIS
Use a sweeping movement: THEY/them/those, YOU-all, WE/us

Response Vocabulary:
YES, NO, THERE-(point),

Note:
Raise your eyebrows at the end of questions that can be answered with a yes or no.
Lower your eyebrows at the end of questions that should be answered with more than a yes or no.

Questions that need to be answered with more than a yes or no are typically referred to as "WH"-questions because they usually involve signs such as, "who, what, when, where, why," and so forth.

For example, in a sentence such as: "Do you understand him/her?" (YOU UNDERSTAND HE/SHE, YOU?) -- the eyebrows are raised since it is a question that can be answered with a "yes" or a "no." Think of the second you as actually being, "(do)-YOU?"

Another "yes/no"-question example: "Do you like to meet Deaf people?"
= "YOU LIKE MEET DEAF?" (Which could also be signed "YOU LIKE MEET DEAF (do)-YOU?") The "(do)-YOU" sign is simply a combination of eyebrows raised while pointing at the person with whom you are signing.

Story 1 (Note: I'll be adding more and more videos to this website as time goes on. That's me (Dr. Bill) telling the story below. The stories are simply made up for practice purposes.)

HI I JOHN SMITH [spell your first and last name].
NICE-MEET-YOU.
I HEARING. [or whatever you are]
I STUDENT [spell the name of your school].
I LEARN LEARN SIGN. (repeating the sign learn is a way to say "learning")
TEACHER NAME [spell the name of your teacher first and last name].
HE/SHE DEAF/HH.   (Use the label that fits your local instructor: DEAF/HH/HEARING]
HE/SHE TEACH GOOD.
I UNDERSTAND HE/SHE.
I LIKE HE/SHE.

Note: Students should practice the story until they can sign it from memory in front of a class or video recorder.

Note: Story 1 is something you might sign when meeting a Deaf person. It is typical for students to tell Deaf people where they are learning sign, who their instructor is, and if their instructor is deaf or hearing. In real life when you are first starting out, you generally won't need to tell them you are hearing--because it will be obvious from your lack of signing skills. Later though when you become fluent at ASL you will certainly want to mention your hearing status and your connection to the Deaf Community.

When Deaf people meet it is obvious that we are Deaf because we tell each other what Deaf school (residential school) we attended (if we did), and when we graduated. Plus if we went to Gallaudet University (a university for the Deaf in Washington D.C.) we'll usually mention that too.

If we meet at a party (or wherever) I'll want to know where you are from, if you went to a Deaf school, if you went to Gallaudet, what year you graduated, the names of any of your relatives who are Deaf, and or if your teacher is Deaf, etc. When I know your connections and you know mine--we can then proceed very efficiently to share information that will be of interest to each other and have a very fascinating and engaging conversation at a level of familiarity that rarely happens during initial meetings between Hearing people.

I'm your instructor for this course. Or, if your "in-person" instructor is using this site as a supplement to his or her class then I reckon I'm your "lab instructor." Either way, I'm glad you are here.

I'm happy to have this opportunity to teach you about the language I love. Let's get started.

A quick trip to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (www.m-w.com) and we get:

(Hey, did you notice the date of that entry from Merriam-Webster? 1960! ASL hasn't been "recognized" as a language for very long has it? Oh sure, the language itself has been around since the early 1800's but it wasn't until 1960 that "experts" started recognizing it as a full-blown autonomous language.
-------------------

Now let's discuss those definitions a bit.

We should say "at least" 500,000 people use ASL. That is an OLD statistic from the 1980's. My estimate is more along the lines of: 2 million people are using ASL on a daily basis and at least 500,000 of those people are using it as their primary means of communication. And that's just in the United States. Millions more people know "some" sign language and use it "once in a while." For example, a grandmother of a deaf child. She may have taken a six-week community education course and now she knows just enough to offer her grandson candy and cookies.

"ASL is a visual gestural language." That means it is a language that is expressed through the hands and face and is perceived through the eyes. It isn't just waving your hands in the air. If you furrow your eyebrows, tilt your head, glance in a certain direction, twist your body a certain way, puff your cheek, or any number of other "inflections" --you are adding or changing meaning in ASL. A "visual gestural" language carries just as much information as an oral/aural (mouth/ear) language.

Is ASL limited to just the United States and Canada?
No. ASL is also used in varying degrees in the Philippines, Ghana, Nigeria, Chad, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Zaire, Central African Republic, Cote d'Ivoire, Mauritania, Kenya, Madagascar, Benin, Togo, Zimbabwe, Singapore, Hong Kong and many other places. (Source: Grimes, Barbara F. (editor), (1996). "Languages of USA" Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 13th Edition. Institute of Linguistics.)

Is ASL a universal language?
Nope. Not even close. Many countries have their own version of sign language. ASL is the dominant signed language in North America, plus it is used to some extent in quite a few other countries, but it is certainly not understood by deaf people everywhere.

ASL History:
In the early 1800's, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, a hearing minister and a graduate of Yale University met and became friends with a young Deaf girl named Alice. Gallaudet took an interest in teaching the girl and succeeded at teaching her a few words. The girl's father Dr. Mason Cogswell, encouraged Gallaudet to become involved with the establishment of a school for the Deaf.

So, in 1815 Gallaudet headed for Europe in search of methods for teaching the Deaf.

He approached a number of program directors, (the Braidwood schools, the London Asylum, etc.), but none of them were willing to share their techniques with Gallaudet.

Fortunately while in England Gallaudet met up with the director of a Paris school for the Deaf, a man by the name of Sicard.

Sicard was there with two of his Deaf pupils, Jean Massieu and Laurent Clerc who were also teachers at the school in Paris. They were in England giving demonstrations on how to teach the Deaf by using sign language. The Paris school, which had been founded by the Abbe Charles Michel de L'Epee in 1771, was using French Sign Language in combination with a set methodically developed signs.

Gallaudet persuaded Clerc to return with him to the States and in 1817 the first American school for the Deaf was established in the city of Hartford, Connecticut.

Over time, the signs used at that school, plus the signs that were already being used by Deaf people in America evolved into what we now know as American Sign Language.

It is important to note that sign language was being used here in America before Gallaudet and Clerc set up the school. One example (that you might want to research more) took place in Martha's Vineyard. At one time many Deaf people lived there and all or almost all of the townsfolk knew how to sign whether or not they were Deaf!

Deaf Culture:
You will often see the term "Deaf" spelled with a capital "D" throughout these pages. I try to capitalize the word "Deaf" when I'm writing about people who are "culturally Deaf." When I refer to people who are physically deaf but not culturally Deaf I tend to use a lowercase letter "d." While it is true that in general "Deaf" people are physically "deaf," that is not always the case. The case could be made that some hearing children of Deaf parents are culturally Deaf. If it becomes important to indicate that a person is both physically deaf and culturally Deaf I will use this label: "d/Deaf."

People who feel that being Deaf is about "language, culture, and a visual orientation to life" subscribe to the "cultural model" of Deafness.

In general, members of the American Deaf Community do not think of ourselves to be disabled. We don't see or label ourselves as impaired versions of Hearing people. We see ourselves as a cultural group bonded together by a common language. Members of our community don't want be be "h/Hearing!" If given a choice, many of us would choose to remain d/Deaf!

There are indeed many deaf people in the U.S. who consider themselves to be disabled. Such individuals are generally not fluent in ASL and do not consider themselves to be members of the core (culturally-Deaf) Deaf Community. So, most of the time when I use the term "Deaf Community," I'm talking about people who are culturally Deaf.

People who feel that "deafness is problem to be solved" subscribe to the "pathological model" or the "medical model" of deafness and are not culturally Deaf.

It may help to realize it isn't our "deafness" that we value. Rather it is our "Deafhood."

Fingerspelling:
As part of this lesson, I'd like to make sure you learn how to fingerspell your name.
One way to do that is to check out the "fingerspelling" page.
Another helpful page is the " handshapes page."

QUIZ:
Check with your local instructor or your syllabus regarding the location of any graded quizzes for this lesson. If you are just self-studying, for a practice quiz, visit: (Self-Study Quiz page)

Note L1.2: Left handed signing. This website is designed from the perspective of a right-handed signer. "Lefties" generally sign in a mirror image of righties. For more information visit "Left-handed Signers" in the Library.
Also, you might want to check out this vocabulary review video for Lesson 1: https://youtu.be/zC24wjEnZrg

* Want to help support ASL University? It's easy: DONATE (Thanks!)

* Another way to help is to buy something from Dr. Bill's "Bookstore."

You can learn American Sign Language (ASL) online at American Sign Language University ™
ASL resources by Lifeprint.com © Dr. William Vicars