Answers basic questions about American Sign Language. What is it? What is its history? Who uses it? What is the Deaf community? Why is ASL important? What are the building blocks of ASL? What is the relationship between ASL and body language? What are examples of ASL grammar?

"Dictionary of all know texts featuring illustrations of early American Sign Language and historical images of French Sign language and linking them with contemporary signs"--

American Sign Language, commonly known as, "A.S.L." has a rich history that is seldom told. It is truly the original language of the United States. Just like the diversity of U.S.A. citizens, this language is an assimilation of languages and cultures blended together to create a unique language that has stood the test of time and controversies. This book explores the origins, heros, and development of this language. An easy to read format with photos and illustrations for readers of all ages to enjoy.

Forbidden Signs explores American culture from the mid-nineteenth century to 1920 through the lens of one striking episode: the campaign led by Alexander Graham Bell and other prominent Americans to suppress the use of sign language among deaf people. The ensuing debate over sign language invoked such fundamental questions as what distinguished Americans from non-Americans, civilized people from "savages," humans from animals, men from women, the natural from the unnatural, and the normal from the abnormal. An advocate of the return to sign language, Baynton found that although the grounds of the debate have shifted, educators still base decisions on many of the same metaphors and images that led to the misguided efforts to eradicate sign language. "Baynton's brilliant and detailed history, Forbidden Signs, reminds us that debates over the use of dialects or languages are really the linguistic tip of a mostly submerged argument about power, social control, nationalism, who has the right to speak and who has the right to control modes of speech."—Lennard J. Davis, The Nation "Forbidden Signs is replete with good things."—Hugh Kenner, New York Times Book Review

"This study investigates the origins of American Sign Language, its evolution from French Sign Language, and evidence about the word formation process of ASL, including data from the 19th and early 20th century dictionaries as well as the Gallaudet Lecture Films."--