What's your sign

Byline james saling

E-mail address  arcjimmyripp@gmail.com

With such a diverse and multicultural campus it is not unusual to walk around and hear many different languages spoken.

There is a foreign language you won't hear.

Juan Pablo de Bonet is attributed as the creator of sign language in the year 1620.

He is responsible for writing a book containing the first documented manual alphabet system in signing.

Those who lived on Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts invented Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language (M.V.S.L.) based off of Bonet’s system, in the 1700s.

It was a alphabet system created and those of that island were known to have hereditary deafness which was very common in this area during this time period.

Bonet and M.V.S.L. influenced others such as the hearing impaired that came soon after the beginning of the 17th century.

Abbe Charles Michel de L'epee is the one responsible for the first school specifically for the hearing impaired in 1771.

The first ever school for the deaf in the United States was established in 1817.

Laurent Clerc and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet were both take credit for the invention of American Sign Language (ASL).

Sign language should simply be known as a foreign language. It is centuries old and has a lot of history .

It is no secret that the human race was not English speaking since the dawn of man.

Communication came in so many different forms and each one took a little bit from all other forms to develop. Sign language was no different.

Without civilized verbal language, sign language could have very well been the first form of language used by the human species to communicate.

It’s certainly is more believable than suggesting they used grunts and moans to communicate as a neanderthal man is portrayed in t.v. and film.

Sign language has developed and evolved over time, and perhaps was the very foundation and the backbone for all languages and communication people use today.

So to not acknowledge signing as a foreign language is nothing more than a thinking impairment.