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From:
Hope Hurlbut Date: Sun Feb 6, 2000 4:48 am Subject: Re: Question About American Sign Language.... | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Dear Valerie and List Members. As far as I know the Philippines uses ASL, but I know for a fact that they have adapted some of the signs to suit Philippine culture. I have been told that in Singapore the Deaf use SEE but I have not had enough contact with the Deaf there to know how much is SEE, and how much is adapted from SEE. A few years ago I attended one sign language class conducted by a Deaf there who was at home on holiday from Gallaudet. He claimed to be teaching ASL to some hearing people. (Actually my curiosity is becoming more and more piqued to cross the border and contact some of the Deaf in the next two or three months, and find out what is going on.) The Malaysian Deaf claim that the Singaporean Deaf use SEE, but I wonder if it is a modified version of ASL, as most of Malaysian Sign Language (MSL) is. I just got back last night from another data collecting trip in Peninsular Malaysia. My Deaf companion and I covered all but one state collecting more word lists and stories in the local versions of Malaysian Sign Language. All these have to be entered into the SignWriter Program and then the lists need to be compared. My gut feeling is that in some states the local MSL is very close to ASL. ASL was introduced in one Malaysian state in 1963, in another in 1965 or so and finally into the only school for the Deaf at the time in 1976. Since then the Malaysian Federation for the Deaf (MFD) has been making a deliberate effort to get rid of ASL and only use MSL which is about 70-75% the same as ASL depending on where you collect the words from. The President of MFD is Deaf himself. I had a second interview with him 2 days ago, and he says they have a preliminary version of an MSL dictionary ready for publication (similar to the style of the Random House ASL Dictionary). Funding was recently received. MFD is really keen to "standardize" MSL, and the dictionary will certainly help with that aim. However one Deaf man told me that he is really keen to learn ASL and spends a lot of time on the internet gleaning new signs. I suspect he is typical of many Deaf here. When I was in Hong Kong one time and bumped into some Deaf, they told me that they use ASL. However some of their signs are very different. I suspect it is a dialect of ASL, but there has been no testing done to prove or disprove it. A year or so ago I was in contact with a Deaf lady, Berta Foster, whose late husband started many schools for the Deaf in several countries in Africa. ASL was introduced to all the schools, but Berta seemed to think that in some places at least a local version of a signed language was developing, based on ASL but using many local signs (probably similar to the Malaysian situation). As you say, Valerie, ASL seems to spreading around the world like English has. It remains to be seen what sign language develops in these many developing countries. I hope my insights help a little. Hope Hurlbut ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Question About American Sign Language.... Author: at Internet Date: 19.01.00 09:02 January 19, 2000 Hello SignWriting List! The List has been rather quiet lately, hasn't it? I have a heavy workload right now, so of course I was hoping others might post some messages!! A lot of people write to me privately with pages and pages of email reports and questions, and of course I am really happy to read all the wonderful messages. If you are one of those waiting for a reply...you have not been forgotten...I am trying to get to all the wonderful reports soon ;-) Here is a recent question from one of the private messages: QUESTION: "Perhaps you can answer a question for me. You seem to have a lot of interest expressed in SW from foreign teachers. I assume that they are applying your methods to their own sign language and that ASL is not practiced in such countries. My question is: Is ASL used in any country other than our own and if English is not their language do they translate the ASL signs using words of their own language. I think the answer to both parts of this question is no, but I would like to have the opinion of an expert." ANSWER: Hmmmm...I bet there are a lot of people on the SW List who are more expert on the subject of ASL than I am. I hope people will write to tell us what countries use ASL... In regards to SignWriting in other countries....English-speaking Canada and the USA seem to be the two places using our SignWriting materials in American Sign Language. The other countries use SignWriting symbols to write their own signed languages, which has nothing to do with ASL. At present, SignWriting is used to write signed languages in Spain, Nicaragua, Brazil, Denmark, Flanders (Belgium), Ireland, Italy, France, the UK, Norway, Malaysia, Germany - and there are several more countries too....the list is growing - and all of those countries do not use ASL. So does anyone on the List know of another country using ASL besides the USA and Canada? Thanks for your question - Val ;-) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Valerie Sutton at the DAC Deaf Action Committee for SignWriting SignWriting https://www.SignWriting.org Center For Sutton Movement Writing an educational nonprofit organization Box 517, La Jolla, CA, 92038-0517, USA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | ||||||||||||||||||||
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