100 Fun Facts About Sign Language

While hearing babies babble aloud, what did a 1991 study find deaf babies of signing parents doing?

Babbling with their hands: the infants produced meaningless, sign-like hand shapes again and again, a clue that babbling springs from the brain's language capacity and not from the voice.

Roughly how many distinct sign languages are in use around the world?

200 is the right order of size: Ethnologue lists about 150 and the United Nations speaks of more than 300, and nobody knows the true number because many sign languages have never been documented.

Which two letters of the ASL manual alphabet are traced in the air instead of held still?

J and Z are drawn in the air, the little finger hooking a J and the index finger zigzagging a Z; left-handed signers trace both as mirror images.

More than nine in ten deaf children in the United States are born to which kind of parents?

Hearing parents: over 90 percent of deaf children are born into hearing families, so many first meet sign language outside the home, at a school or signing programme.

What is the term for giving a word letter by letter with a manual alphabet?

Fingerspelling lets a signer borrow a name or an English word that has no sign of its own, which is why it turns up most with the names of people and places.

How is the British manual alphabet made, unlike the American one?

With two hands, while the American alphabet needs only one, so British and American signers share a written language yet spell it out in completely different ways.

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

By pointing to the fingertips: A, E, I, O and U run from the thumb to the little finger, and Auslan and New Zealand Sign Language, which took over the British alphabet, spell their vowels the same way.

Who published a pioneering book in Madrid in 1620 on teaching deaf people to speak?

Juan Pablo Bonet built on the methods of earlier Spanish teachers, and the one-handed alphabet printed in his book lives on in the fingerspelling of many sign languages, American Sign Language among them.

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 the world's first public deaf school in Paris?

Charles-Michel de l'Épée opened the school around 1760 after a chance meeting with two deaf sisters, and taught through signs instead of forcing his pupils to speak.

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

France: America's first permanent deaf school opened in 1817 with a deaf teacher recruited from Paris, and his signs blended with those the pupils brought from home to form ASL.

Which deaf teacher did Thomas Gallaudet bring from Europe to co-found America's first permanent school for deaf children?

Laurent Clerc spent the Atlantic crossing teaching Gallaudet to sign while Gallaudet taught him English, and the Hartford school they opened in 1817 is still running.

Which 1990 US law requires hospitals and many businesses to provide sign-language interpreters when needed?

Americans with Disabilities Act: it puts the duty to communicate clearly on the provider, so a hospital can no longer simply tell a deaf patient to bring a relative along to interpret.

Why couldn't Thomas Gallaudet learn to teach deaf pupils in Britain in 1815?

Its schools guarded their methods as a family trade secret and wanted payment for every pupil taught, so Gallaudet looked elsewhere in Europe, which is why ASL owes little to British signing.

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

Edinburgh: Braidwood began in 1760 with a single pupil, a wealthy merchant's deaf son, and later moved the school to London, where his family kept it going after his death.

Which UK nation passed its own British Sign Language Act in 2015, seven years before Westminster's?

Scotland's 2015 Act obliges its ministers to draw up and publish a national plan setting out how public bodies will promote the use and understanding of the language.

What did the British Sign Language Act 2022 do?

Legally recognised BSL in England, Wales and Scotland: the bill was brought by Rosie Cooper, an MP raised by deaf parents who calls BSL her first language.

ASL's signs FAMILY and CLASS share a movement and differ only in what?

The handshape: FAMILY is made with F hands and CLASS with C hands, the first letter of each English word, a borrowing many Deaf signers regard as English leaking into ASL.

Auslan is the main sign language of the Deaf community in which country?

Australia: the name is short for Australian Sign Language, which grew out of the signing that deaf migrants from Britain brought with them in the 1800s.

Which of these sign languages is more closely related to French Sign Language than to BSL?

Irish (ISL): Dublin's Catholic deaf schools taught boys and girls apart, so for generations Irish men and women signed noticeably different vocabularies.

Which common English verb has no everyday equivalent in ASL or Auslan?

To be: signers link a subject straight to its description, so 'my hair is wet' comes out as MY HAIR WET, with nothing standing in for 'is'.

What was the 1970s forerunner of International Sign called?

Gestuno was a vocabulary of signs chosen by a World Federation of the Deaf committee, but it changed so much in use that the looser signing it grew into is now simply called International Sign.

In which Italian city was the World Federation of the Deaf founded in 1951?

Rome hosted the first World Congress of the Deaf, where delegates from 25 national associations set up the federation; the UN now marks its founding date, 23 September, as the International Day of Sign Languages.

New Zealand's 2006 Sign Language Act gave deaf people the right to use NZSL where?

In court: the Act that made NZSL an official language beside Māori created no other new legal right, but it obliges the judge to make sure a skilled interpreter is on hand.

Which country wrote the rights of sign-language users into its constitution in 1995?

Finland's 1995 reform said the rights of sign-language users would be secured by law, and twenty years later parliament followed through with a dedicated Sign Language Act.

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

Managua: when special-education schools gathered deaf children there from 1977, they pooled their home gestures and within a few years had built a language no adult had taught them.

As Nicaraguan Sign Language took shape in the 1980s, which signers turned out to use the richest grammar?

The youngest children: each new group that arrived took the older pupils' rough signing and made it more regular, so the language grew richer as its signers got younger.

Besides its many deaf residents, who commonly signed on 19th-century Martha's Vineyard?

Their hearing neighbours signed too, so deaf islanders joined fully in work and town life; the deafness itself traced back to settlers from the Weald of Kent.

Gallaudet University, founded to educate deaf students, sits in which US city?

Washington, D.C.: the school began in 1856 on land given by Amos Kendall, a former postmaster general who had taken in several deaf children with no one to care for them.

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

A lingua franca for trade and diplomacy: nations with unrelated spoken languages could bargain and negotiate in it, and their deaf members used it as an everyday language.

Which survivor of the 1527 Narváez expedition left one of the earliest written accounts of Native American sign talk?

Cabeza de Vaca spent eight years crossing the Gulf Coast and northern Mexico after the expedition fell apart, and reported dealing with peoples of many languages through signs.

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

Village sign language: one well-studied case, Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language, arose in the Negev within about 70 years, with a word order unlike the Arabic and Hebrew spoken around it.

Which of these sign languages is a known linguistic isolate?

Kata Kolok grew up on its own over several generations in Bengkala, a small community in north Bali where hereditary deafness is common.

Which system for putting sign languages on paper did Valerie Sutton develop in 1974 from her dance notation?

SignWriting grew out of Sutton's work as a ballet dancer: researchers in Copenhagen asked her to use her DanceWriting to record how deaf people sign.

What term was coined, from the Greek for 'hand', for the sign-language equivalent of phonology?

Cherology has since been dropped: linguists now simply say 'phonology' for signed languages too, since signs break down into contrasting parts much as spoken words do.

Which Gallaudet English professor published the 1960 study that first showed ASL is a true language?

William Stokoe was a scholar of medieval literature, not a trained linguist, who came to Gallaudet in 1955 to chair its English department and began analysing the signing around him.

Gallaudet University is officially bilingual in which two languages?

ASL and written English: classes are taught in sign, and although the university was founded for deaf students, it also admits a small number of hearing undergraduates each year.

Which US president signed the act that allowed Gallaudet to grant college degrees?

Abraham Lincoln signed it in the middle of the Civil War, and since Ulysses S. Grant's time the sitting president has signed every Gallaudet graduate's diploma.

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

Banning it in favour of oral teaching: the congress declared speech superior and signs were pushed out of deaf schools for decades; its 2010 successor in Vancouver formally rejected the resolutions.

In March 1988, students shut down Gallaudet University for a week to demand what?

A deaf president: the board had picked the one hearing finalist, and after a week of protest she resigned and I. King Jordan became the first deaf person to lead Gallaudet.

Which Oscar record did Marlee Matlin set with her 1987 win?

Youngest Best Actress winner: Matlin was 21, taking a record Janet Gaynor had held since the very first ceremony, and she gave her acceptance speech in sign language through an interpreter.

Which deaf model won America's Next Top Model in 2015?

Nyle DiMarco, who grew up in a multigenerational deaf family, won Dancing with the Stars the next year and set up a foundation to press for deaf children's early access to language.

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

I, L and Y are held at once: the little finger for I, the thumb and index finger for L, and the thumb with the little finger for Y; fold the thumb in and it becomes rock music's 'horns'.

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

Classifiers let one hand stand for a whole class of things: an ASL signer can park a car, swerve it or stage a crash with a single 'vehicle' hand.

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

Koko, a western lowland gorilla, was taught signs adapted from ASL alongside her companion Michael, but researchers have long questioned whether her signing amounted to real language.

Libras is the national sign language of which country?

Brazil's 2002 law recognised Libras, short for Língua Brasileira de Sinais, as a legal means of communication and obliged public services to support its use.

What basic word order does ASL use?

Subject-verb-object is ASL's basic order, but a signer can move the topic to the front, so an object-first sentence like 'that book, I read' is grammatical too.

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

Joints of the fingers and palm of the left hand each stood for a letter, a kind of alphabet hearing people had already used for secret messages before Dalgarno printed one for deaf pupils.

US rules bar video relay calls when a signer and hearing person are where?

In the same room: relay calls are paid for from a fund for telephone services and exist only to connect people who are apart, so a shared room needs an interpreter on site or by video link.

Among the Aboriginal Warlpiri, who traditionally give up speech for months on end and sign instead?

Widows are barred from speaking while they mourn, which is thought to be why Warlpiri signing grew so elaborate and why the women know it better than the men.

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.