American Sign Language: Home

Get your message across using your hands and your body language Want to communicate with the Deaf community but are mystified how to start? With American Sign Language Demystified you'll learn this unique visual language, and a whole new world of communication will be opened to you. At your own pace, you will learn basic grammar structures, discover the nuances of body positioning, master how to convey time, and build a useful vocabulary of signs and phrases.

A 30-day beginner's guide for learning American Sign Language There's an easy way to leap right in to learning American Sign Language (ASL). American Sign Language for Beginners delivers 30 days of lessons that will help you sign with those in your home, community, and classroom. From letters and numbers to essential vocabulary and grammar basics, this beginner's guide provides the essentials needed to develop a solid foundation for American Sign Language in the real world. Each daily lesson takes less than 30 minutes to complete and focuses on a single set of vocabulary or ASL grammar. Throughout the course, you'll find key phrases, helpful memory tips, signing practice activities, and insight into deaf culture. Start your ASL masterclass today. American Sign Language for Beginners includes: 30 Days of easy ASL--Start off right with an accelerated plan designed to help you begin signing in just one month. Easy-to-understand instructions--Lessons concentrate on a single idea or subject and include photographs to demonstrate signs. Everyday phrases--Daily instruction highlights vocabulary you're most likely to need as you explore ASL in your daily life. Jump-start your learning experience with American Sign Language for Beginners!

Barron's American Sign Language is a brand-new title on ASL that can be used in the classroom, as a supplemental text to high school and college courses, or for anyone who wants to learn proper ASL. The only American Sign Language book with comprehensive instruction and online graded video practice quizzes, plus a comprehensive final video exam. Content includes topics on the Deaf culture and community, ASL Grammar, fingerspelling, combining signs to construct detailed sentences, Everyday ASL, and much more. More than 1,000 illustrations of signs with instructions on movement--step-by-step with dialogue, tip boxes, and practice exercises and quizzes throughout to reinforce retention and to track your progress. Essential Grammar: Our in-depth explanations will help you to understand core grammar, sentence structure, and facial grammar. Everyday Phrases: Sign phrases like "hello" or "sorry" that are used in daily conversations.

This heavily illustrated, self-teaching guide to ASL--American Sign Language--is useful both for the deaf and for those men and women who teach or work among deaf people. E-Z American Sign Language presents ASL's 10 key grammatical rules and emphasizes the use of "facial grammar" as an important supplement to manual signing. Most of the book's content takes the form of a presentation of more than 800 captioned line drawings that illustrate signs for their equivalent words and then show how to combine signs in order to communicate detailed statements. Barron's E-Z Series books are updated, and re-formatted editions of Barron's older and perennially popular Easy Way books. Titles in the new E-Z Series feature extensive two-color treatment, a fresh, modern typeface, and more graphic material than ever. All are self-teaching manuals that cover a wide variety of practical and academic subjects, written on levels that range from senior high school to college-101 standards.

Created by an unparalleled board of experts led by renowned ASL linguist and poet Clayton Valli, The Gallaudet Dictionary of American Sign Language contains over 3,000 illustrations. Each sign illustration, including depictions of fingerspelling when appropriate, incorporates a complete list of English synonyms. A full, alphabetized English index enables users to cross-reference words and signs throughout the entire volume.        The comprehensive introduction lays the groundwork for learning ASL by explaining in plain language the workings of ASL syntax and structure. It also offers examples of idioms and describes the antecedents of ASL, its place in the Deaf community, and its meaning in Deaf culture. This extraordinary reference also provides a special section on ASL classifiers and their use. Readers will find complete descriptions of the various classifiers and examples of how to use these integral facets of ASL. The Gallaudet Dictionary of American Sign Language is an outstanding ASL reference for all instructors, students, and users of ASL. *Please note that this paperback edition does not include the DVD found in the hardcover edition. 

In the sign languages of the deaf some signs can meaningfully point toward things or can be meaningfully placed in the space ahead of the signer. Such spatial uses of signs are an obligatory part of fluent grammatical signing. There is no parallel for this in vocally produced languages. This book focuses on American Sign Language to examine the grammatical and conceptual purposes served by these directional signs and demonstrates a remarkable integration of grammar and gesture in the service of constructing meaning.

The story of how American Sign Language (ASL) came to be is almost mythic. In the early 19th century, a hearing American reverend, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, met a Deaf French educator, Laurent Clerc, who agreed to come to the United States and help establish the first school in America to use sign language to teach deaf children. The trail of ASL's development meanders at this point. No documentation of early ASL was published until the late 19th century, almost seven decades after the school's founding. While there are many missing pieces in the history of America's sign language, plenty of data exist regarding ASL etymology. This book is the first to collect all known texts featuring illustrations of early ASL and historical images of French Sign Language--langue des signes française (LSF)--and link them with contemporary signs.      Through rigorous study of historical texts, field research in communities throughout France and the U.S., and an in-depth analysis of the cultural groups responsible for the lexicon, authors Emily Shaw and Yves Delaporte present a compelling and detailed account of the origins of over 500 ASL signs, including regional variations. Organized alphabetically by equivalent English glosses, each sign is accompanied by a succinct description of its origin and an LSF sign where appropriate. Featuring an introductory chapter on the history of the development of ASL and the etymological methodology used by the authors, this reference resource breaks new ground in the study of America's sign language.

In this absorbing story of the changing life of a community, the authors of Deaf in America reveal historical events and forces that have shaped the ways that Deaf people define themselves today. Inside Deaf Culture relates Deaf people's search for a voice of their own, and their proud self-discovery and self-description as a flourishing culture. Padden and Humphries show how the nineteenth-century schools for the deaf, with their denigration of sign language and their insistence on oralist teaching, shaped the lives of Deaf people for generations to come. They describe how Deaf culture and art thrived in mid-twentieth century Deaf clubs and Deaf theatre, and profile controversial contemporary technologies. Most triumphant is the story of the survival of the rich and complex language American Sign Language, long misunderstood but finally recently recognized by a hearing world that could not conceive of language in a form other than speech. In a moving conclusion, the authors describe their own very different pathways into the Deaf community, and reveal the confidence and anxiety of the people of this tenuous community as it faces the future. Inside Deaf Culture celebrates the experience of a minority culture--its common past, present debates, and promise for the future. From these pages emerge clear and bold voices, speaking out from inside this once silenced community.

The Joy of Signing is one of the most comprehensive guides available for mastering the current basic signs used to communicate with deaf people in either the word order of the English language or in the American Sign Language pattern. This updated third edition provides the basic vocabulary needed for persons entering interpreter training programs. Over 1,500 signs are clearly illustrated and are grouped by chapter into their natural categories. Families as well as professionals will appreciate this manual's conceptually based vocabulary. It includes sections on the history of sign language and fingerspelling, the art of signing, language patterns of signs, and an illustrated guide for fingerspelling.

Tabak has created a fascinating exploration of a unique and uniquely beautiful North American language. The story begins in 18th century France in the first schools to use signed language as the language of instruction. Early in the 19th century a few individuals introduced a variant of this language into the United States and developed an educational system in which to use it. Out of these schools come members of a new American social class, the Deaf--with a capital D--who, united by a common signed language, create institutions through which they can participate in society on terms equal to those of other constituent groups. This strategy proved extremely controversial among all but the Deaf. The controversy lasted a century, during which time American Sign Language evolved along racial lines and in response to the pressures of those who sought to eliminate the use of American Sign Language. Today, new ideas in art, science, and education have supplanted much of the old opposition to American Sign Language and Deaf culture. New legislation and new technologies have also had profound effects on the lives of American Deaf. As a consequence, American Sign Language is evolving faster than ever before.

"An inspirational and helpful resource for parents to help them learn how to foster early communication with their children through baby sign language" (Sabrina Freidenfelds, MPH, IBCLC, founder of Then Comes Baby).   What does your baby want to say? You can find out even before your baby can verbally speak by using baby sign language. Signs of a Happy Baby gives parents everything they need to start signing with their baby, including a comprehensive dictionary with easy-to-follow photos of fun and practical American Sign Language (ASL) signs, and tips for integrating sign language into their everyday activities. Start signing with your baby now. What your baby has to say will blow you away!   "Places everything you need to know about signing with your baby neatly in one place." --Leah Busque, executive chairwoman and founder, TaskRabbit   "Brimming with tips and tools for getting started with baby sign language, Signs of a Happy Baby is a practical resource for any parent who wants to know what's going on in their baby's mind." --Mora Oommen, executive director, Blossom Birth Services   "A smart guide that's not only fun, but filled with research showing how baby sign language helps build your child's language and cognitive skills, allowing your child's thoughts and feelings to be expressed, long before verbal communication is possible. This book is a must for anyone who has or is working with a little one." --Sheila Dukas-Janakos, MPH, IBCLC, owner of Healthy Horizons Peninsula Breastfeeding Center