American Sign Language

American Sign Language is the dominant sign language in the United States, Canada and parts of Mexico. American Sign Language is usually abbreviated ASL though it has also been known as Ameslan. As with other sign languages, its grammar and syntax are separate and distinct from the spoken language(s) spoken in its area of influence. It originated around the turn of the century as the sign languages of the American Indians, French Sign Language, and the sign language of the residents of Martha's Vineyard merged with one another and probably other linguistic influences as the first school for the deaf in America was established by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet.

ASL has been allegedly taught to chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas. Several have been said to have mastered more than one hundred signs. One deaf native speaker on the Washoe research team was asked to write a sign down whenever she saw them and although the hearing people on the team were turning in long lists of signs, what she saw were not signs at all, but simply gestures. The researchers in the studies of Koko and Washoe also refused to share their raw data with the scientific community.

ASL is a natural language as proved to the satisfaction of the linguistic community by William Stoke. It is a manual language meaning that the information is expressed not with combinations of sounds but with combinations of handshapes, movements of the hands, arms and body, and facial expressions. It is used natively and predominantly by the deaf of the United States and Canada.