American Sign Language

n. American Sign Language (ASL) is a sign language with 100,000-500,000 primary users predominantly in the United States and parts of Canada and Guatemala. ASL is also used to varying degrees in parts of Asia and Africa. ASL developed in the American deaf community, with significant influence of French Sign Language (FSL) when the latter was introduced into the United States in the early 1800s. ASL and FSL share portions of their lexicons. However, they are not mutually intelligible. ASL is not related to English but has an entirely different grammar and lexicon. For example, ASL uses different signs to express the two senses of the English word right ("correct" and "not left"). Unlike in English, the canonical word order for ASL is subject-object-verb. Meanings that require multiple words in English (e.g., He shows me) can be conveyed in ASL by a single sign accompanied with simultaneous movements.    - EMF