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American Sign Language, usually abbreviated to "ASL", is
the principal sign language in North America, including the United States of
America (with perhaps 2 million people knowing the language), and
English-speaking parts of Canada, as well as parts of Mexico. ASL is also
used to some degree in a number of other countries around the world, but it
should be emphasized it is not mutually intelligible with the sign language
used in the United Kingdom which is known as British Sign Language ("BSL")
and is in fact quite different (ASL is in fact very similar to modern French
Sign Language, and has about 60% vocabulary in common with it).
Sign language is the third most commonly used language in America today. The
ASL alphabet or the Alphabet for American Sign Language is said to have come
to be by way of two means. At first it was only thought the ASL Alphabet was
brought to America by Laurent Clerc a Deaf man who taught Deaf students in
the first School for the Deaf in Hartford, Conn. He is said to have adopted
many aspects of FSL (French Sign Language) in his teachings. New evidence
says that sign language was partly already here in America at Chilmark and
West Tisbury on Martha's Vineyard where a large collection of Deaf
individuals communicated clearly and efficiently regardless of their lack of
effective education. From any perspective, sign always has and always will
be evolving similar to English as it has evolved over the years since
America broke away from England.
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