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Sign Language is No. 4 in America | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| JPike1028 Triglot Senior Member United States piketransitions Joined 5398 days ago 297 posts - 337 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Italian Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Portuguese, Czech | Message 1 of 9 08 December 2010 at 10:27am | IP Logged | ||
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http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-12-08-1Alanguage s08_ST_N.htm
Soon to be no. 3? Edited by JPike1028 on 08 December 2010 at 10:27am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| eumiro Bilingual Octoglot Groupie Germany Joined 5275 days ago 74 posts - 102 votes Speaks: Czech*, Slovak*, French, English, German, Polish, Spanish, Russian Studies: Italian, Hungarian | Message 2 of 9 08 December 2010 at 10:41am | IP Logged | ||
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Is it really a foreign language?
Or just the third form of English along with the spoken and the written form, which are different 'languages' too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| egill Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5697 days ago 418 posts - 791 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 3 of 9 08 December 2010 at 10:55am | IP Logged | ||
Yes. It really is completely different from English. It is a bona fide natural language with it own syntax, morphology, etc. The largest influence on it was Old French Sign language, which I'm sure you'll agree has very little to do with English. It supposedly shares 60% lexical similarity with Modern French Sign Language. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_sign_language Edited by egill on 08 December 2010 at 10:55am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 4 of 9 08 December 2010 at 4:17pm | IP Logged | ||
Third form of English? Only in the way English is a form of French. American Sign Language is definitely a distinct language, with it's own syntax, morphology, etc. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| michau Tetraglot Groupie Norway lang-8.com/member/49 Joined 6227 days ago 86 posts - 135 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, NorwegianC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish, Sign Language Studies: Burmese, Toki Pona, Greenlandic | Message 5 of 9 08 December 2010 at 4:34pm | IP Logged | ||
Not even in this way. English and French are related, i.e. they have a common ancestor. ASL and English cannot possibly be related, for quite obvious reasons. I wonder why there are so many misconceptions about sign languages, even among language enthusiasts. They aren't designed by committees. The case of Nicaraguan Sign Language (arguably the youngest natural language on the Earth) shows how they really come into existence - it doesn't differ from the way spoken languages did. Edited by michau on 08 December 2010 at 4:47pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Desacrator48 Groupie United States Joined 5309 days ago 93 posts - 127 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 6 of 9 08 December 2010 at 8:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sure, sign language is a language in the loose definition of the word. But without a listening or speaking component, or a reading/writing one (is Braille related as such?), you won't be classifying it in the same category as Spanish, French, German, etc. that has these things.
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| michau Tetraglot Groupie Norway lang-8.com/member/49 Joined 6227 days ago 86 posts - 135 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, NorwegianC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish, Sign Language Studies: Burmese, Toki Pona, Greenlandic | Message 7 of 9 08 December 2010 at 9:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sign languages are languages from the linguistic point of view - they can be used to express ideas at the same level complexity as Spanish, French and German do. They are also languages from the informal perspective - they have "language" in their names, after all.
Braille, on the other hand, is not a language, but a way of writing, just as e.g. Cyrillic and Latin alphabets are different ways of writing Serbian. Languages don't need to have a writing component - most of world's languages don't have one. But there is actually SignWriting for sign languages. I just hope we won't get into a pointless "is Esperanto a language"-type flame. Edited by michau on 08 December 2010 at 9:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kyssäkaali Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5554 days ago 203 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish | Message 8 of 9 08 December 2010 at 11:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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I actually remember reading that ASL grammar is more reminiscent of Bantu languages than English. Can anyone confirm?
Also, I'm curious. I know different versions of English sign language aren't mutually intelligible, but exactly how different are the grammars of, say, America, British and Australian sign language? Sorry to kind-of-sort-of hijack the thread. xD 1 person has voted this message useful |
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