Yo estoy bien.

[bionic_kate]

One of my teacher's aides, Janette, grew up in Puerto Rico and she has started to teach me Spanish. I have always been interested in other languages. I took four years of French in high school - three when I had hearing and the fourth when I was deaf. By the way, I graduated high school with the highest grade in French, thank you very much, but

Comments

[jacquilynne]

Out of curiosity, is sign language different for people from countries with different spoken languages? I know there's American Sign Language, but is there a different set of signs that correspond to French or Chinese?

[helainaj]

muy bien Kate!
I want to learn spanish too! And french, and russian, and arabic...

jacquilynne:
the answer is yes.

[jacquilynne]

I went off and read the wiki page about sign languages after I asked the question, and it was pretty interesting. It's neat that the different languages exist more because they developed differently at different times and less because of differences amongst the spoken languages--like the fact that American and British sign languages are "mutually unintelligible" (which is a great phrase) despite the languages being virtually the same.

[bionic_kate]

Oops, I haven't been checking livejournal for a few days. As helainaj answered, and you discovered, the sign languages of different countries are different. American Sign Language is closest to French sign language. When Thomas Gallaudet wanted to start the first deaf school in America, he went to England to learn their sign system and they wouldn't teach him. So he went to France and learned from their deaf education system!