American Sign Language is a real language

Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog!

I’m really excited to start this space where I’ll be sharing interesting facts, curiosities, and things I learn about American Sign Language (ASL). This isn’t a course , it’s more like a friendly corner where we explore how languages work, especially a visual language as beautiful and expressive as ASL.

To begin our journey, I wanted to share something that many people don’t know.

Many people think American Sign Language (ASL) is just English translated into signs, but that’s not true. ASL is actually a complete and independent language with its own grammar, sentence structure, and vocabulary. It has its own grammar system that is different in many ways from that of English.  What this means is ASL grammar has its own rules for how signs are built (phonology), what signs mean (morphology), the order in which signs should be signed (syntax), and the way context influences signing (pragmatics). 

For example, English sentences usually follow the Subject–Verb–Object structure, like: I study ASL.

But in ASL, the order can change depending on what the signer wants to emphasize. It might look more like: ASL I study.

Also, ASL does not use English words or grammar rules. It uses visual grammar, where facial expressions, head movements, and the position of signs are part of the meaning. For instance, raising your eyebrows can turn a statement into a question.

If you’re curious to learn more, you can find more information here.

Thank you for joining me on this first post. I can’t wait to keep learning and sharing more with you next week! :)





















Comments

  1. Adriana’s WunderNotesJanuary 28, 2026 at 1:59 PM

    I was really into SLA back in 2020, it's so nice to see someone create a post about it. I will be checking it every week!

    ReplyDelete

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