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Interpretations People, Places, and Events History of Sign Language A New Language

History of Sign Language

America Sign Language has been around for a long time. But who invented it or how did it come to be? What we call American Sign Language actually has roots in Europe. It was in the 16th century that Geronimo Cardano, in northern Italy, decided that deaf people could be taught to understand combinations of symbols by associating them with the things that they represented. Juan Pablo de Bonet then published the manual alphabet in 1620, making it the first book on teaching sign language to deaf people.

In 1775, Abbe Charles Michel de L'Epee of Paris founded the first free school for deaf people. He believed that deaf people could develop a communication with themselves and the hearing world through a system of hand signs, finger spelling and gestures. He was considered a very creative man because he developed his sign language system by first recognizing, then learning signs that were already being used by a group of deaf people in Paris. He created a way for deaf people to have a more standardized language to call their own.

Another well-known deaf educator was Samuel Heinicke of Germany. Heinicke did not use the normal method of communication at this time, he decided to taught language by speech and speech reading to deaf people. Heinicke established the first public school for deaf people that achieved government recognition.

We as Americans owe a large amount of gratitude to Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, a Congregational minister. Gallaudet become interested in helping his neighbor's young deaf daughter, Alice Cogswell. So he traveled to Europe in 1815, to study methods of communicating with deaf people. While studying abroad, Gallaudet met Abbe Roche Ambroise Sicard, who invited him to study at his school for deaf people in Paris. After several months studying the language, Gallaudet met Laurent Clerc, a deaf sign language instructor from the school in Paris. Clerc then in turn returned to the United States with Gallaudet. Gallaudet then founded the nation's first school for the deaf in 1817, in Connecticut. Where Clerc became the United States' first sign language instructor.

Soon after the opening of the first school, several schools for the deaf begin to pop up all over the United States. Among the first were The New York School for the Deaf in 1818 and a school in Pennsylvania opened its doors in 1820. By the year 1863, 21 schools throughout the United States had been established.

In 1864, Gallaudet College, in Washington D.C. was founded and today remains the only liberal arts college for deaf people in the United States and the world. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet passed his dream of a college for deaf people to his son, Edward Miner Gallaudet. Edward with the help of Amos Kendall made the dream a reality. Edward Miner Gallaudet became the first president of the new college. The opening of schools for the deaf in the United States further promoted the standardization of American Sign Language.

Today we are fortunate to have one of the most complete and expressive sign language systems of any other country in the world. Many deaf people use a different structure when signing, but many use the system known as American Sign Language, or ASL. Interest continues to grow in sign language, making it now the fourth most used language in the United States. Regardless of how it began, it is clear that American Sign Language, as we know it today, developed over time.