American Sign Language has been around for a long time. In the United States, as in most of the world, hearing families with deaf children often employ ad-hoc home sign for simple communications. Today though, ASL classes are offered in many secondary and postsecondary schools. ASL is a language distinct from spoken English—complete with its own syntax and grammar and supporting its own culture. The origin of modern ASL is ultimately tied to the confluence of many events and circumstances, including historical attempts at deaf education.
It has been alleged that some signs based on ASL have been taught to both species of chimpanzee, the bonobo and common chimpanzee, as well as to gorillas, though to what extent they actually use signs is debatable. Several of the animals have been said to have mastered more than one hundred signs, though there is disagreement about the primates' ability to sign.
ASL's roots
American Sign Language actually has roots in Europe. One version of its history has it beginning in Italy. It is also known that in the 18th century, the Abbe De l'Epee of France developed an early form of sign language that contributed to American Sign Language
The primary sign language used by deaf and hearing-impaired people in the United States and Canada, devised in part by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet on the basis of sign language in France. Also called Ameslan . Gallaudet's son, Edward Miner Gallaudet founded the first college for the deaf in 1857, which in 1864 became Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, the only liberal arts university for the deaf in the world.
