ASL

ASL is a beautiful language that was brought to America in 1817. Unlike what you would expect from the land of the free, ASL was a sort of 'borrowed language'.

In the early 1800s, Deaf people were considered dumb in America. Therefore, no schools were established to teach the Deaf. Our story begins with a man by the name of Thomas Gallaudet. One day Gallaudet was home sick. He was looking out the window when he saw a little girl named Alice Cogswell. Alice was deaf. Her father, a doctor, begged Gallaudet to travel to Europe and learn of ways to teach Alice. Accepting Dr. Cogswell's pleas, Gallaudet packed his bags and sailed to England.

Upon arriving to England, Gallaudet went to a school for the Deaf called ''Braidwood Academy. ''But it was not what Gallaudet was looking for. Braidwood Academy  was a very strict oral school, meaning that students were taught how to speak orally and read lips as their way to communicate with the hearing world. Students were punished if they were caught using any form of sign language. Gallaudet did not like this and decided to move on to France.

In France, Gallaudet met a man by the name of Laurent Clerc, who was a deaf teacher of French Sign Language (FSL). Clerc became deaf as a young child, only about one year old. He was standing on a chair near a fireplace when he fell into the fire. Due to this fall he got a scar on his cheek. Gallaudet tried to learn as much of this sign language as he could. But it was too soon time for him to return home. Gallaudet pleaded Clerc to return with him. Clerc agreed and they sailed back to America.

Back now in America, Clerc and Gallaudet opened the American School for the Deaf, the first of its kind in America. Alice was their first student.

ASL continued to grow and develop from FSL until the two became their own entities. French Sign Language can be thought of as the mother of American Sign Language.