Is Sign Language a Universal Language?

Is sign language a universal language? The answer is no, so you learn the sign language of the deaf community you need to reach.

American Sign Language is not a code for spoken English, even though deaf communities use it across the United States and in much of Canada. British Sign Language is a different language, and an ASL signer should not expect to follow it. The sections ahead sort a separate language from a regional accent and from International Sign, then match the main sign languages to places.

What Is a Sign Language?

A sign language is a complete natural language with its own rules for how a sign is built and how signs line up in a sentence. You produce it with the hands, the face, and the body, and you understand it by watching.

The guide to American Sign Language from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders describes ASL as a full language whose grammar differs from English. English often marks a question with a rising voice and a changed word order. ASL marks a yes-or-no question with raised eyebrows, wider eyes, and a body that tilts forward.

Fingerspelling sits inside ASL rather than replacing it. Each letter has its own handshape, and signers use those shapes for a proper name or when they want a specific English word. The rest of the sentence still follows ASL word order, not the order of an English sentence spelled in the air.

Why Isn’t Sign Language the Same in Every Country?

Deaf communities built their languages where deaf people lived, worked, and went to school, so the languages grew up separately. A shared spoken language does not pull them into one system. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia all use English in public life, and they do not share one sign language.

The World Federation of the Deaf describes hundreds of unique sign languages, each with its own structure, grammar, and stock of signs, and some countries keep more than one. The Ethnologue sign language catalogue is a different kind of count: it lists 161 sign languages, and 131 of them are grouped as Deaf community sign languages. Hundreds describes that spread, while 161 and 131 count entries the catalogue has coded.

A United Nations General Assembly resolution, the one tied to the International Day of Sign Languages, treats national sign languages as fully fledged natural languages, built differently from the spoken languages beside them. English on a street sign still does not name the sign language in the room.

How Do American Sign Language and British Sign Language Differ?

ASL and BSL fail the test people borrow from American and British English. Those spoken varieties are close enough for a visitor to cope. The sign languages are far enough apart that Americans who know ASL may not understand BSL at all.

The clearest split for a beginner is the alphabet. ASL fingerspelling uses one hand, with a distinct shape for each letter. BSL fingerspelling uses two hands. If you learned the ASL alphabet and then watch a BSL signer spell a name, the shapes will not match, and guessing from context will not save the name.

No person or committee invented ASL. Local sign languages already used in America mixed with French Sign Language when Laurent Clerc, a deaf teacher from Paris, and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, a hearing minister from New England, started a school for deaf pupils. On April 15, 1817, Clerc and Gallaudet opened their school in Hartford, the institution now called the American School for the Deaf.

Today’s ASL still carries some signs that resemble French Sign Language, along with signs from those older American varieties. Users of modern ASL and modern French Sign Language do not understand each other. A family resemblance in a few signs will not carry a conversation in Paris.

Put the differences you will actually meet in a class or on a trip side by side.

Once the alphabet and the history sit on two lines, a class labeled only “sign language” is not enough information. Ask which language the teacher uses and which country that language belongs to.

Which Sign Language Is Used Where?

Match the place to the language before you pay for a course or assume a traveler will follow you. Spoken English is a weak clue, because several English-speaking countries sit on different rows of the same list.

Two more splits catch people who book one course for a whole region. The same catalogue lists Indian Sign Language and Pakistan Sign Language as separate languages, so one class will not cover both countries. It also lists Hong Kong Sign Language and Taiwan Sign Language apart from Chinese Sign Language.

What Is International Sign?

International Sign is the system people name when they still want one set of signs for the whole world. Deaf people use it at international meetings, at the Deaflympics, in videos made for a cross-border audience, and informally while traveling. It is a contact variety, not the national language of any one country.

The World Association of the Sign Language Interpreters describes how International Sign is used and treats it as a pidgin form: less settled and less complex than a natural sign language, with a limited sign list. You cannot discuss every topic in it the way you can in ASL or BSL, especially if you have never signed across a language barrier before.

The practical route in is fluency in at least one sign language, then time watching people use International Sign with signers who do not share that language. Someone with no sign language yet will have a hard time becoming fluent in the contact form. Since International Sign interpreting appeared at the WFD Congress in 1987, the demand at international forums has grown, and that interpreting work is its own skill.

International Sign can bridge a congress or a game where no single national sign language would cover the room. It will not give you BSL on a London street or Japanese Sign Language in Tokyo. For anything that has to be precise, you still need the local language and an interpreter who works in it.

How Does American Sign Language Vary by Region?

ASL is one language, and it is not identical in every city. Signers differ from one another, and the language also has regional accents and dialects. Rhythm, slang, and some of the signs themselves change from place to place, much as English words change across the United States.

Age and gender shape ASL as well. A sign you picked up from a recent online teacher can differ from the sign an older deaf adult in your town prefers. Those differences stay inside ASL, and BSL remains another language, so local ASL slang does not turn ASL into a world system.

The same kind of argument shows up inside other countries. Signers in Scotland object when lessons treat one southern variety of BSL as the version for the whole of Britain. If you are learning BSL, ask which variety the teacher uses and whether deaf signers in your city recognize it.

Which Sign Language Should You Learn?

Name the person you want to talk with before you name the course. The language follows that person and that place, not the spoken language printed on the street signs.

MATCH THE LANGUAGE TO THE PERSON

• US friend: Learn American Sign Language, then ask which signs that person’s city actually uses.
• Quebec: Ask about Quebec Sign Language rather than assuming ASL will cover the conversation.
• Britain: Learn British Sign Language, and check that your city’s variety matches what the class teaches.
• Australia or New Zealand: Choose Auslan in Australia and New Zealand Sign Language in New Zealand, not BSL and not ASL.
• A deaf child: Use the national sign language of the community around the child, and know that 9 out of 10 children who are born deaf are born to parents who hear.

Hearing parents who choose sign language often learn it with their child, and deaf peers are a main route to fluency when the parents are new to the language. The World Federation of the Deaf treats access to a national sign language from birth as part of a deaf child’s language rights, which is a different decision from the textbook a hearing adult buys for a holiday.

For a conference that brings deaf people from many countries, International Sign is the contact practice those events use, and it still assumes you already sign one full language. For a hospital visit, a school meeting, or a workplace in one country, name the national sign language when you request an interpreter.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Hearing People Use American Sign Language?

Hearing people can use American Sign Language, and many do, as parents, classmates, coworkers, and friends. The language still comes from deaf communities, so fluency grows from signing with deaf people over time, not from a weekend spent on the alphabet alone.

Is Fingerspelling Enough for a Conversation?

Fingerspelling is not enough for a conversation. In ASL it spells a name, a place, or an English word you do not have a sign for, one handshape per letter. After that name is clear, you need the signs and the grammar of the language, or the exchange stops.

Do Some Countries Have More Than One Sign Language?

Yes, and a visitor should not treat those languages as accents of one another. Belgium has Flemish Sign Language and French Belgian Sign Language. Switzerland has Swiss-German Sign Language, Swiss-French Sign Language, and Swiss-Italian Sign Language. Spain has Spanish Sign Language, Catalan Sign Language, and Valencian Sign Language. Vietnam’s entries even split by city, including Hanoi Sign Language, Haiphong Sign Language, and Ho Chi Minh City Sign Language.

Is Gestuno the Same as International Sign?

Gestuno is an older name for international signs, and it still turns up in older writing. What deaf organizations use now at events such as World Federation of the Deaf meetings and the Deaflympics is International Sign. That practice has a limited sign list, so it does not replace ASL, BSL, or any other national sign language.

Are Everyday Gestures a Sign Language?

No, everyday gestures are not a sign language, even when a wave, a point, or a thumbs-up is easy to guess across countries. A sign language has a community that passes it on, a large sign list, and grammar that can ask, negate, and tell a story.

Before you pay for a class or request access at work, put the language’s name in the sentence: ASL, BSL, Auslan, Quebec Sign Language, or whichever language the person in front of you uses. A flyer that only says sign language has not told you which one you are about to meet.

Disclaimer: This article is an educational guide to how sign languages differ from one another, and it is informational only. It is not medical, educational, legal, or interpreting advice. Talk with a qualified teacher who is a fluent signer, a deaf-education specialist, or an early-intervention team before you set a language path for a child, and request a qualified interpreter when access at school, work, or in health care is at stake. Descriptions here reflect the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, Ethnologue, the World Federation of the Deaf, and the World Association of the Sign Language Interpreters as published, and those descriptions can change.