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> I think there are a few gramar and idiom differences Sign languages are unrelated to spoken languages: they're not just sign representations of existing lan
by canjobear 4y ago
> I think there are a few gramar and idiom differences
Sign languages are unrelated to spoken languages: they're not just sign representations of existing languages like English and Spanish, they are independent languages. But deaf people do learn to read spoken languages in school, essentially as a foreign language.
- Angostura 4y agoNot unrelated. Closely related, but different.
- klyrs 4y agoASL and English are not closely related. Reason being that ASL was derived from French, not English.
- yieldcrv 4y agosign languages are not universal, they are just a parallel set of languages. ASL isn't a blanket term for sign language, especially in the context of a non-English nexus.
- klyrs 4y agoNote my specific contrast of ASL vs English. General statements about sign languages (such as calling them "parallel" languages) are frequently inaccurate. The comment you responded to is a counterexample to a generalization.
- yieldcrv 4y agoThats…. Ok. Convenient. Nobody was talking about English before you except to illustrate how they dont map one to one in a variety of languages. But I can acknowledge your contribution to this thread.
- richbell 4y agoYeah, that is a confusing element to explain about sign languages. For example, Spanish Sign Language is called that because it's a language regional to Spain, not because it's related to Spanish.
- canjobear 4y agoNo, they're unrelated in exactly the same way that the English language and Chinese language are unrelated. There may be lots of vocabulary overlap (in the form of finger-spellings) but the grammar and basic vocabulary have independent origins.