Myth: ASL is Concrete

One of the most popular myths about sign language is that although ASL can express concrete concepts, it is restricted in its ability to deal with abstract ideas. This misconception results from linguistic prejudice. Linguistic prejudice is not a recent development. Documented historical evidence as far back as 2500 years ago substantiates its existence in such disparate cultures as the Ancient Greeks and the Romans.

The individual notions that fit under the category of linguistic prejudice are many and often take centuries to discount in spite of scientific evidence. The specific notion we are considering here - that the languages of technologically undeveloped societies are more primitive and concrete than those of technologically advanced countries - has only recently been discounted.

Early in this century, based on objective studies of a cross-section of the world's languages, linguists concluded that no natural language is more "primitive" than another and that each one satisfies the communication and expressive requirements of its own community. Furthermore, all languages have the flexibility and creativity to meet new situations. For instance, when scientific, technological, artistic, or intellectual developments are introduced into a community for the first time, its language becomes modified through usage so that it can handle the new concepts.

Every language serves the various social and personal needs of the community that uses it. As the needs of a community change, its language tends to change as well to meet the new conditions. The vocabulary of the language expands to take care of new concepts. New words are either "borrowed" from other languages, or else made up by recombining elements of the original language. English, for example, has borrowed many words from other languages. The words boutique and detente come from French, igloo from Eskimo, patio from Spanish, moccasin from an American Indian language, and algebra from Arabic. Kleenex and Frigidaire are invented words based on elements already existing in English - clean, frigid and air.

Hebrew is a classic example of a language that adapted to new conditions. For two thousand years it had been almost entirely limited to religious practices. The words of the Old Testament and a few other documents made up its whole vocabulary. Now that it is the everyday language of a modern country, it has changed and expanded to deal with all aspects of a complex technological society. Not all the new words are borrowings from European languages; some are made up of parts of old words recombined in new ways, while others are extensions of old words.

As cultures change, so do their languages. It is fairly obvious that the English, French, Russian, and Chinese of a hundred years ago would not be suited to deal with today's space age. What would Washington and Lincoln have understood by landing pad, space capsule, or even television? There are still many spoken languages in the world that have never been used for modern scientific or technological subjects because the people who speak these languages are not interested in these fields, or else, because another language is used to deal with them. For example, although India has sixteen major languages, for historical and political reasons, all higher education is conducted in English. Consequently, a discussion of nuclear physics is probably more difficult in these languages than in English even for those who are native speakers of one or more of the Indian languages.

Every language has the potential to create new words, give new meaning to old words, and to "borrow" words from other languages when the need arises to express new meanings. In the past, English borrowed thousands of words from the French. Right now, the process is reversed as many English words are being borrowed into the French language. Two of the many borrowings are le drugstore and le weekend.

All these changes occur spontaneously as a function of needs experienced by the users of specific languages. A language does not become "corrupt" when it borrows from other languages; on the contrary, it is enriched. One reason that English is such a rich language is that it has borrowed so freely from other languages.

Users of ASL also have a lot of contact with written and spoken English. Thus, they are able to draw on the very large vocabulary of the English language. English words are borrowed into ASL by means of fingerspelling and initialized signs. The finger alphabet (more precisely called the manual alphabet) consists of 26 hand shapes, each one corresponding to a letter of our written alphabet. Through fingerspelling (spelling a word or words letter-by-letter with the hand), any English word can be represented visually as part of an ASL conversation. When signers find that a sign is unavailable for a particular concept, they fingerspell the English word, or in some cases use an initialized sign. An initialized sign combines an existing sign with a manual alphabet handshape corresponding to the first letter of an English word. For example, the older sign GROUP which had such various translations as "family," "class," "team," and "group" now is the base for several initialized signs. In this way, all technical terms, and names of people and of geographical places can be expressed in ASL. While the myth about primitive oral languages was laid to rest early in this century, it is still maintained in regard to sign languages. Sufficient information about ASL (and other natural sign languages) has been collected by linguists to show that its grammar and the rules for the formation of signs are as complex as those of spoken languages and that there are no inherent limitations on what it can express.

These initialized signs resulted from the combination of one existing sign with the first letter of five different English words. The original sign, which had various translations previously, is now the sign CLASS, since the handshape with which it is made is identical to the letter "C."

ASL includes many signs for abstract ideas such as LOVE, FAITH, BELIEF, and TRUST. Although some signs have iconic features, they function as symbols just like spoken words. When we read in a newspaper article that "The U.S. Sixth Fleet is sailing in the Mediterranean," in our mind we conceive correctly a fleet of large steel ships powered by oil-burning engines. Given what we know about modern naval warfare, we do not imagine that the U.S. Navy has acquired an armada of sailboats! We can abstract away from the original meaning of the word "sail" and assign to it a new meaning which applies to ships without sails. In the same way, even a sign which shows some iconic element is not restricted to its original meaning. As the need arises, signs take on new and different meanings.

These signs are just a few of the abstractions which occur in American Sign Language.

ASL has ways of expressing nuances - different shades of meaning - just like spoken languages. There are no limitations on what can be handled in ASL except those set by the choice of topics normally discussed in the language by members of the deaf community. The assumption that ASL is limited to informal exchanges because of inherent deficiencies in its vocabulary or lack of structural complexity is without basis. For instance, because of their particular interest to deaf people, the sign vocabulary can deal with all aspects of sports. Like spoken languages discussed earlier, ASL has the potential to adapt itself to new requirements for its use in areas where previously no demands were made on it.

The American manual alphabet consists of 26 handshapes, each one corresponding to a letter of the written alphabet. The manual alphabet is used in fingerspelling, that is, spelling a word or words letter-by-letter with the hand. The copyright on these views of the manual alphabet is held by David O. Watson.