107 Fun Facts About Sign Language

Is signing the same all over the world?

No, there are many distinct languages: American Sign Language and British Sign Language are mutually unintelligible, with unrelated vocabularies and different manual alphabets.

How many sign languages did the 2021 edition of Ethnologue list?

The 2021 edition of Ethnologue listed 150 sign languages; the SIGN-HUB Atlas counts more than 200 and notes that many remain undocumented.

In signed languages, much of the grammar of a sentence is produced 'non-manually', meaning with what?

The face and torso carry grammar: raised eyebrows and a forward head tilt mark yes/no questions in ASL, and shifting the torso marks a change of speaker role.

What does ASL's 'carelessly' mouth gesture (slightly open, tongue relaxed) mean in BSL?

Boring or unpleasant is what that mouth gesture means in BSL, while ASL reads it as 'carelessly', a neat example of non-manual signals being language-specific rather than universal.

What is the term for spelling out a word letter by letter using a manual alphabet?

Fingerspelling uses a manual alphabet to borrow words such as names from a spoken language, and can spawn 'initialized' signs built on a word's first letter.

How many hands does the British manual alphabet use?

Two hands are used: the British manual alphabet is two-handed, shared with Auslan and New Zealand Sign Language, unlike the one-handed American alphabet.

In the British manual alphabet, how are the vowels represented?

By pointing to the fingertips of the non-dominant hand: the five vowels A, E, I, O and U are a touch to the thumb, index, middle, ring and little finger in turn.

What Latin-titled 1698 pamphlet contains the earliest printed ancestor of the BSL alphabet?

Digiti Lingua, a 1698 pamphlet by an anonymous author who could not speak, printed the earliest pictures of that alphabet and suggested it could also serve for secrecy or entertainment.

Who published the first modern treatise on sign-language phonetics in Madrid in 1620?

Juan Pablo Bonet published his 'Reducción de las letras y arte para enseñar a hablar a los mudos' in Madrid in 1620, regarded as the first modern treatise on sign-language phonetics, with a one-handed manual alphabet.

Which Spanish Benedictine monk is credited with the first manual alphabet for teaching deaf pupils?

Pedro Ponce de León, a 16th-century Benedictine at the monastery of Oña, taught deaf children of noble families and is credited with the first manual alphabet, adapted from signs used by silent religious orders.

Which priest, the 'Father of the Deaf', founded Paris's first public deaf school in 1760?

Charles-Michel de l'Épée opened his free school for deaf pupils in Paris in 1760 after meeting two deaf sisters signing to each other, and taught through 'methodical signs' rather than speech.

What title did the National Assembly give the late founder of Paris's deaf school in 1791?

Benefactor of Humanity was the title the National Assembly voted him in July 1791, declaring too that deaf people had rights under the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

Modern ASL is most closely related to the signing of which country?

Roughly 58% of ASL signs are cognate with Old French Sign Language, brought over by Laurent Clerc.

Roughly what share of modern ASL signs are cognates of Old French Sign Language signs?

About 58% of ASL signs were found to be cognate with Old French Sign Language signs in James Woodward's 1978 study, leaving ASL a distinct language rather than a dialect of LSF.

Reliable estimates put the number of ASL users in the United States in what range?

250,000 to 500,000 is the usual estimate for ASL users in the United States; no accurate census has been taken, and the figure includes hearing children of deaf adults.

Why is ASL so different from British Sign Language despite the shared spoken language?

Britain's Braidwood school refused to teach Gallaudet without payment, so in 1815 Thomas Gallaudet turned to Paris, learned the French method and brought Laurent Clerc back to open the Hartford school in 1817.

In which city did Thomas Braidwood found Britain's first school for deaf children in 1760?

Thomas Braidwood opened his Academy for the Deaf and Dumb in Edinburgh in 1760, the first school of its kind in Britain; he moved it to Hackney, London, in 1783.

In what year did the UK government formally recognise BSL as a language in its own right?

On 18 March 2003 the UK government formally recognised BSL as a language in its own right, a recognition that carried no legal protection at the time.

What did the British Sign Language Act 2022 do?

Legally recognised BSL in England, Wales and Scotland: the British Sign Language Act 2022, a private member's bill from Rosie Cooper MP, received royal assent on 28 April 2022.

According to the British Deaf Association, roughly how many people in the UK use BSL?

151,000 people in the UK use BSL, of whom about 87,000 are deaf; the figure excludes professional users such as interpreters unless they also sign at home.

Auslan belongs to which sign-language family?

BANZSL (British, Australian and New Zealand Sign Language) groups three signing varieties that descend from 19th-century BSL and share one manual alphabet.

Which signed language descends from LSF and is closer to ASL than to BSL?

Irish (ISL) descends from French Sign Language, brought to Dublin's Catholic deaf schools in the 1840s by nuns trained in Caen; Irish nuns later carried it to Catholic deaf schools in Australia.

What does it mean that Auslan is a 'zero-copula' language?

The verb 'to be' is not used: Auslan links subject and predicate directly, so a sentence such as 'she is a teacher' is signed without any equivalent of 'is'.

What was International Sign formerly called?

Gestuno was the name adopted in the 1970s for the World Federation of the Deaf's standardised vocabulary; it loosely combines 'gesture' and 'oneness', and was later renamed International Sign.

In which year was the World Federation of the Deaf founded?

The World Federation of the Deaf was founded in Rome in September 1951, at the first World Congress of the Deaf; its congresses have been held roughly every four years since.

NZ Sign Language became New Zealand's third official language in 2006, alongside English and what?

Māori has been an official language since 1987; the New Zealand Sign Language Act, passed on 6 April 2006, made NZSL the third, alongside Māori and the de facto official English.

Which country wrote sign-language rights into its constitution in August 1995?

Finland guaranteed the rights of sign-language users in its fundamental-rights reform that took effect on 1 August 1995; the clause survives as Section 17 of the 2000 Constitution.

Papua New Guinean Sign Language became that country's fourth official language in what year?

In May 2015 Papua New Guinea made its sign language the country's fourth official language, alongside English, Tok Pisin and Hiri Motu.

Greek Sign Language gained equal status with Modern Greek in which year?

Law 4488 of 2017 recognised Greek Sign Language as equal to Modern Greek, building on its 2000 recognition as the official language of deaf education.

Iceland's 2011 law gave Icelandic Sign Language what status?

Mother tongue of those who rely on it, and their children: Iceland's 2011 language-status act gave it that standing, with a right to learn it from the moment deafness is diagnosed.

Nicaraguan Sign Language emerged spontaneously among deaf children at schools in which city, from 1977?

Managua is right: a special-education centre opened in the city's San Judas district in 1977, growing from 50 to 100 deaf pupils by 1979, and the children built a language from their home signs.

Which MIT linguist did Nicaragua's Ministry of Education contact in 1986 to study the children's signing?

Judy Kegl, an American Sign Language linguist then at MIT, was the researcher the ministry called in 1986; her fieldwork documented the children's signing developing into a full grammar.

At its 1854 peak, roughly what proportion of Martha's Vineyard residents were deaf?

One in 155 islanders was deaf at the 1854 peak, against a national rate of about one in 5,700; the hereditary deafness traced back to settlers from the Weald of Kent.

In which Martha's Vineyard town was deafness most concentrated, at about one in 25 people?

Chilmark had about one deaf resident in 25; in its Squibnocket section as many as a quarter of some 60 residents were deaf, and hearing islanders signed too.

Who was the first deaf person known to settle on Martha's Vineyard, arriving in 1694?

Jonathan Lambert, a carpenter and farmer, arrived with his hearing wife in 1694; intermarriage among the island's close-knit settlers kept the hereditary deafness going for some 200 years.

Plains Indian Sign Language historically served the Great Plains nations mainly as what?

A lingua franca for trade and diplomacy: Plains sign talk bridged dozens of spoken languages, and an 1885 estimate counted over 110,000 'sign-talking Indians' among the Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Sioux, Kiowa and Arapaho.

Whose narrative of the 1527 Narváez expedition is among the earliest records of Plains sign talk?

Cabeza de Vaca, a survivor of the 1527 Narváez expedition, described Indigenous sign communication on the Texas Gulf Coast in his 1542 Relación; Coronado noted Plains sign talk again in 1541.

What term describes signing that arises over generations in an insular community with many deaf people?

Village sign language is the term; examples include Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language in Israel's Negev and Adamorobe Sign Language in Ghana, both born in communities with high hereditary deafness.

Which of these sign languages is a known linguistic isolate?

Kata Kolok, the village sign language of Bengkala in north Bali, has no known relationship to any other sign language, unlike the three other options, which belong to larger families.

Which sign-language writing system, developed by Valerie Sutton in 1974, records facial expression and movement?

SignWriting, devised by Valerie Sutton in 1974 from her dance notation, records handshapes, movement and facial expression, unlike Stokoe notation, which has no symbols for non-manual features.

What term did William Stokoe coin as the sign-language equivalent of phonology?

Cherology, from Greek cheir ('hand'), was Stokoe's term in his 1960 Sign Language Structure for analysing signs into contrastive units, the cheremes, parallel to phonology's phonemes.

What subject was William Stokoe's PhD in before he revolutionised the study of ASL?

English, specialising in medieval literature, was the field of Stokoe's Cornell PhD; he joined Gallaudet in 1955 as English department chair, recruited by a Cornell classmate who had become its dean, and only then began analysing signs.

Gallaudet University is officially bilingual in which two languages?

ASL and written English are Gallaudet's two official languages of instruction; the Washington, D.C. university, chartered in 1864, designs all its programmes for deaf and hard-of-hearing students.

Which US president signed the 1864 act allowing Gallaudet to grant college degrees?

Abraham Lincoln signed the act on 8 April 1864 authorising the Columbia Institution's collegiate department, the National Deaf-Mute College, to confer degrees; it became Gallaudet College in 1894.

The 1880 Milan Conference passed a resolution doing what to sign language in deaf education?

Banning it in favour of oral teaching: the 1880 Milan congress declared the oral method superior and resolved that signs be excluded from deaf schools; the 2010 Vancouver congress formally rejected those resolutions and apologised.

Whose remark that 'Deaf people cannot function in a hearing world' helped ignite the 1988 Deaf President Now protest?

Jane Spilman, chair of Gallaudet's board, was reported to have made the remark while defending the choice of a hearing president in March 1988; within a week she resigned and I. King Jordan became the first deaf president.

What record did Marlee Matlin set in 1987 with her Best Actress win?

Youngest Best Actress winner: Marlee Matlin was 21 when she won for her screen debut in Children of a Lesser God at the March 1987 ceremony, beating Janet Gaynor's 1929 win at 22.

Nyle DiMarco graduated from Gallaudet in 2013 with a degree in what?

Mathematics: Nyle DiMarco earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Gallaudet in 2013, then won America's Next Top Model and, the following year, Dancing with the Stars.

The ASL sign for 'I love you' merges the handshapes of which three letters?

I, L and Y are merged in the ASL 'I love you' sign: the thumb, index finger and little finger extend together, combining the handshapes for those three fingerspelled letters.

What term covers sign-language constructions showing an object's motion, position or handling?

Classifiers are handshapes that stand for a class of referent and show its motion, position or handling, such as ASL's upright '3' hand for a vehicle; they are among the most iconic parts of signed languages.

One of the earliest written references to signing appears in which dialogue of Plato?

Cratylus is where Socrates asks whether, lacking voice or tongue, we would not 'try to make signs by moving our hands, head, and the rest of our body', an early written reference to signing.

Which famous signing ape had a male companion named Michael who also learned signs?

Koko, the western lowland gorilla taught a modified ASL from 1972, lived with the male gorilla Michael, who learned several hundred signs; linguists note the apes acquired signs, not a full language.

In which country must every cinema release offer a national sign-language video track?

Brazil requires it: the national film agency ANCINE obliges distributors to supply a Libras video track, audio description and descriptive subtitles for commercial releases, typically delivered on a second screen or app.

What basic word order does ASL use, unlike Japanese Sign Language?

Subject-verb-object is ASL's basic order, though topic-comment structures are common; Japanese Sign Language is subject-object-verb, plausibly influenced by the word order of spoken Japanese.

George Dalgarno's 1680 alphabet for deaf pupils indicated letters by pointing to what?

Joints of the fingers and palm of the left hand were the letter positions in George Dalgarno's 1680 Didascalocophus, a scheme later echoed by the vowel positions of the British manual alphabet.

In a video relay service (VRS) call, the signer, interpreter and hearing person are in how many places?

Three separate places: in a video relay service call the signer, the interpreter and the hearing party are each remote from one another, whereas in video remote interpreting the two clients share a room.

Which Aboriginal Australian signing system is cited as independent of any spoken tongue?

Yolngu Sign Language, from north-east Arnhem Land, is described as an independent language rather than a signed form of speech, unlike the speech-taboo sign systems hearing people developed elsewhere in Aboriginal Australia.

Which American football tradition began when Gallaudet's deaf quarterback wanted to hide his signed plays?

The huddle is credited to Paul Hubbard, Gallaudet's quarterback in 1894. He pulled his players into a tight circle so that rival deaf schools could not read his signing.

NASA recruited eleven deaf men from Gallaudet College for space research because they were immune to what?

Motion sickness never troubled them, because damage to the balance organs of the inner ear had left them immune. Tests that made other subjects nauseous barely affected the group.

In ASL, the sign meaning a hearing person makes a small circle in front of which part of the body?

The mouth, not the ear, is where the sign is made. It pictures words tumbling out, because to Deaf signers a hearing person is above all someone who talks.

Before patenting the telephone in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell earned his living in Boston doing what?

Teaching deaf students was Bell's trade, and his mother and wife were both deaf. Deaf critics fault him all the same for backing lip-reading over sign language.

Which 2021 Best Picture winner takes its title from a term for the hearing child of deaf parents?

CODA stands for child of deaf adults. Its heroine Ruby is the only hearing member of her family, and she interprets for their fishing business in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

How do Deaf audiences traditionally applaud a performance instead of clapping their palms together?

Twisting raised hands is applause made for the eye. The arms go straight up with the fingers outstretched and the wrists turn back and forth.

In which 2018 horror film does a family use ASL to avoid creatures that hunt by sound?

A Quiet Place cast Deaf actress Millicent Simmonds as daughter Regan. Its signing came about after she showed director John Krasinski a scene's dialogue translated into ASL.

Which coffee chain put its first US 'Signing Store', where every employee knows ASL, near Gallaudet University?

Starbucks modelled the shop on a signing store it had opened in Kuala Lumpur in 2016. It hired Deaf and hearing staff from across the United States to run it.

On which children's TV series did Deaf actress Linda Bove play a signing character named Linda from 1971 to 2002?

Sesame Street kept Linda on screen for some thirty years. The character later became the street's librarian, echoing Bove's own degree in library science.

Which ASL sign starts with the fingers of a flat hand near the lips and moves toward the other person?

Thank you is aimed at the person being thanked. It looks a good deal like the one-handed sign GOOD, which is angled a little more downward.

The ASL signs MOTHER and FATHER use the same open hand; where does the thumb touch for FATHER?

The forehead is the place for FATHER, while MOTHER puts the same thumb on the chin. A light double tap is common, though a single touch is enough.

The ASL sign HOME touches bunched fingertips to two spots on the cheek, a reminder of which two activities?

Eating and sleeping are what make a home in this sign. Swap the bunched fingers for the letter D and HOME turns into DORM.

Which polite ASL sign is made by moving a flat hand in circles over the centre of the chest?

Please keeps the palm flat on the chest. Make the same circles with a closed fist instead and the sign becomes SORRY.

Which everyday ASL sign raises and lowers a closed fist by bending it at the wrist?

Yes treats the fist as a stand-in for the signer's head. Bending the wrist up and down makes that little head nod.

Which common ASL sign is made by interlocking the two index fingers, then doing it a second time?

Friend is also the second half of the compound BOYFRIEND. In that compound the repeat can be dropped, so the fingers interlock only once.

The ASL sign COFFEE circles one fist on top of the other, a movement borrowed from which kitchen task?

Turning a grinder is the picture behind the sign. The bottom fist stays still like the body of an old coffee mill while the top fist works the crank.

The ASL name sign for Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, also used for his university, doubles as the sign for what?

Glasses and Gallaudet share one sign, a pinch drawn back from the side of the eye. The same movement can also mean Moses.

In ASL, the sign PAST moves a flat hand in which direction?

Back over the shoulder is where ASL puts the past. The line runs the other way too, so a bigger forward sweep of FUTURE means a time far ahead.

In ASL, what does shaking the head throughout a signed clause do to the meaning of that clause?

Makes it negative, with no extra sign needed. ASL also has the manual signs NOT and NONE, and both are made with the same shake of the head.

Which animal's ASL sign is made simply by snapping the fingers twice, a gesture also used to call one?

Dog has another popular version that slaps a flat hand against the leg before the snap. Either way, the snap is always made with the middle finger.

In ASL grammar, lowering the eyebrows while signing a sentence marks it as which kind of utterance?

A wh- question, one asking who, what, where, when or why, takes lowered brows. A yes-or-no question raises them instead and keeps the word order of a statement.

In ASL, the noun CHAIR is formed from the verb SIT; what sets the noun apart from the verb?

A repeated movement, which linguists call reduplication, does the job. The same trick derives many other ASL nouns from verbs that are made with a single movement.

ASL's sign HELP is a 'directional' verb; changing the direction in which the hands travel shows what?

Who does what to whom is carried by the movement itself. Starting near your own body and moving toward someone means 'I help you', with no separate signs for 'me' or 'you'.

In ASL, adding the AGENT sign after a verb such as TEACH changes the verb's meaning in which way?

Names whoever does it: TEACH plus AGENT gives TEACHER. The verb's final pause is dropped so that the two parts flow together as one sign.

How does an ASL signer usually express 'he', 'she' or 'you' when that person is in the room?

An aimed index finger does the work of the English pronoun. Nothing in the sign itself separates 'you' from 'he' or 'she', so the context decides.

What does writing 'Deaf' with a capital D, rather than a lowercase one, usually signal about a person?

Cultural identity is the point of the capital letter. Lowercase 'deaf' describes the audiological condition alone, whichever language a person happens to use.

By tradition, who gives a hearing ASL student a name sign, rather than the student inventing one?

A Deaf community member bestows it, and knowing Deaf people is no guarantee of receiving one. The sign is used to talk about someone, not to address them.

The widely used ASL idiom TRAIN GO SORRY is closest in meaning to which English saying?

You missed the boat is the nearest English match. Signers also use a variant, CIGARETTE-GONE, and neither makes sense if it is read one sign at a time.

What is the practice of writing ASL signs as English words in capital letters, kept in ASL order, called?

Glossing gives English-speaking learners a way to see ASL on paper. Deaf signers do not use it to write their own language.

What is the name for the method in which a deafblind person rests their hands on a signer's hands to follow?

Tactile signing lets the receiver read signs through touch and movement. In its hand-over-hand form their hands rest lightly on the backs of the signer's.

Which deaf girl next door inspired Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet to help create the American School for the Deaf?

Alice Cogswell was a doctor's daughter whom Gallaudet began teaching while home at his parents' house next door. She had been deaf since a fever at two, and the United States then had no school for deaf pupils.

Which teacher first reached the deafblind Helen Keller by spelling words into her hand?

Anne Sullivan began with the word 'doll', for the doll she had brought as a present. The famous breakthrough with 'water' came a month later.

Which deaf outfielder, a major leaguer from 1888, is credited by some with inspiring umpires' safe and out signals?

William Hoy had retired by the time umpire Silk O'Loughlin, nursing a sore throat, used the signals in the 1906 World Series. Reporters there called them his code.

Which Gallaudet graduate founded mission schools for deaf children across Africa, beginning in Ghana?

Andrew Foster was Gallaudet's first Black Deaf graduate. His schools are the main reason ASL-based sign languages are used across much of West Africa.

Which National Association of the Deaf president made the 1913 film Preservation of the Sign Language?

George Veditz saw oralism in schools as a threat to signing, so he set out to capture master signers on film. His own film is now in the US National Film Registry.

At the Deaflympics, what replaces the starter's pistol to begin races on the running track?

A light signal starts each race, since the athletes cannot be guided by sound. For the same reason football referees wave a flag instead of blowing a whistle.

The National Technical Institute for the Deaf, a pioneering college for deaf students, is in which New York city?

Rochester is home to the institute, a college of the Rochester Institute of Technology. It was the first technological college in the world for deaf students.

Which chimpanzee, raised in Nevada from the 1960s, became the first non-human to learn signs adapted from ASL?

Washoe went on to learn about 350 signs and taught some of them to her adopted son, Loulis. On first seeing a swan she combined the signs for water and bird.

A 1970s study that taught ASL signs to a chimpanzee named him as a pun on which linguist?

Noam Chomsky held that only humans can use language. The project's leader, Herbert Terrace, named the infant chimp Nim Chimpsky after him and set out to challenge that claim.

Linguists formally recognised in 2013 that which US state has its own sign language, unrelated to ASL?

Hawaii has had its own sign language since at least the 1820s. By 2013 only about 40 people used it, most of them over 80 years old.

Which variety of ASL, shaped by the deaf schools of the American South, tends to use a larger signing space?

Black ASL grew out of the racially segregated deaf schools of the American South. Signers there kept it long after the schools were desegregated.

Which system, invented at Gallaudet in 1966, adds hand signals to tell apart sounds that look alike on the lips?

Cued speech was devised by R. Orin Cornett. Sounds such as p and b look identical on the lips, so a hand signal supplies the contrast that a lip-reader cannot see.

Which sign language, rather than ASL, is the main one used by Deaf communities in francophone Canada?

LSQ, short for Langue des signes québécoise, is centred on Quebec. It is also found in communities in Ontario and New Brunswick.

Which actor became the first deaf man to win an acting Oscar, for playing a fisherman father in a 2021 film?

Troy Kotsur also devised the sign language used by the Tusken Raiders in The Mandalorian. He then played one of the raiders on screen.

In which Guillermo del Toro film does a mute cleaner use sign language to befriend a captive amphibious creature?

The Shape of Water won four Academy Awards, Best Picture among them. Its heroine Elisa, found beside a river as a baby with scars on her neck, speaks only through signs.

In which Oscar-winning film does Riz Ahmed play a drummer who learns ASL after losing his hearing?

Sound of Metal won Oscars for its sound and its film editing. Ahmed's character learns to sign while living at a rural shelter for deaf recovering addicts.

Which ABC Family drama was billed as the first mainstream series with scenes shot entirely in ASL?

Switched at Birth also counted several deaf and hard-of-hearing actors among its regulars. The series went on to win a Peabody Award.

Deaf West Theatre took which rock musical to Broadway, performed in ASL and English at the same time?

Spring Awakening mixed deaf and hearing actors in its cast. The revival also featured Ali Stroker, the first Broadway performer to use a wheelchair.

Which Marvel hero, played by Deaf actress Alaqua Cox, signs in ASL in Hawkeye and her own 2024 series?

Echo, whose real name is Maya Lopez, was the very first acting role for Alaqua Cox. Cox grew up on the Menominee reservation in Wisconsin.

In which 2021 monster film does Jia, a deaf girl who communicates in ASL, form a special bond with a giant ape?

Godzilla vs. Kong cast Kaylee Hottle, a deaf actress from an all-deaf family, as Jia. Co-star Alexander Skarsgård learned ASL to communicate with her.