American Sign Language
Our society has both hearing and deaf persons.  Hearing people use a spoken language such as English, while people who are deaf use a visual language, i.e. American Sign Language (ASL) . American Sign Language is a comprehensive and distinct language with its own syntax and grammatical structure.

American Sign Language (ASL) is the fourth most commonly used language in the United States. It is the first language of many deaf North Americans and one of several communication options available to deaf people. Even though ASL is used in the United States, it is a language completely separate from English. It contains all the fundamental features a language needs to function on its own: it has its own rules for grammar, punctuation, and sentence order. Different Sign Languages are used in different countries, regions and even small social groups; no one form of Sign Language is universal.

American Sign Language is a complete, complex language that employs signs made with the hands and other movements, including body positions, body posture, arm movements, hand and finger positions, facial expressions involving eyes, eyebrows, cheeks, lips and mouth movements - all used in certain specific combination's to convey meanings.  American Sign Language is not a form of manually coded English. Text and static pictures cannot convey Sign Language, since Sign Language is a language of expressions and movements.

Finger spelling cannot convey Sign Language.  Finger spelling is used to spell words that cannot be signed in Sign Language.  Finger spelling is the equivalent of English text letters only.

The numerical system in American Sign Language requires proper movement to define numerical meaning.  Time, money and dates all have different movements.  The numerical system cannot be defined with finger spelling.

Multiple meaning words such as “can” look the same in English text, while carrying a different meaning; however in American Sign Language there is a different sign for each meaning, such as a “can of soup” or “he can do it”.

If you are interested in learning ASL, American Sign Language apps such as the ASL Dictionary, ASL Dictionary for iPad, ASL Translator, ASL Baby Sign are excellent resource. We hope you enjoy them. Keep Signing:)

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The ASL Dictionary and ASL Translator were developed with the assistance of deaf product developers and professional Sign Language instructors and interpreters. If you enjoy our apps please take the time to give us a 5 star review. It means a lot to us.  THANK YOU