A History and Math Lesson for Me!

This week I paired learning numbers with some research on the history of ASL. I wanted to know more background on the language I was choosing to learn. The history of ASL started in 1814 when deaf education began in the United States. The American School for the Deaf was started by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc in 1817 and was the first free public deaf school in the United States. ASL stemmed from the students who came to the school and what signs they had made in their lives. Many students went on to create schools all over the country, and by 1863 there were 22 deaf schools in the U.S. Gallaudet University is the first and only deaf university in the world. I also learned that there is an Old American Sign Language that is related to the ASL we know today. This is the sign language that communities would use before there was one standard sign language! Did you know that there are between 138 and 300 different sign languages used in the world? That article highlights a few if you are interested!

For my own skill-building this week, I again used The ASL app to learn how to count to 20. The videos this week were still very helpful. I found myself struggling more with numbers than I had with letters. I think this struggle is because signing numbers in ASL is different than how I have counted on my fingers for years. The numbers 1 and 2 are how I would start to count on my hand, but 3 and up are different. You also hold your hand backwards, which took some getting used to. Some things are just slightly different than letters. The number 6 is very close to how you sign the letter W, but where your thumb and pinky are is only slightly different. The letter F and number 9 are also very close. For someone who doesn’t know sign language, it would also be very easy to see someone signing the letter W or the number 6 and think it was a 3! These are things I will have to be very conscious of!

Below is a video of me signing numbers 1-20! See you next week!