American Sign Language
From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change
American Sign Language (old names: Amslan, Ameslan ) is the most popular sign language for the Deaf in the United States, in the English-speaking parts of Canada, and in parts of Mexico. Although the United Kingdom and the United States share English as a spoken and written language, British Sign Language (BSL) is different than American Sign Language.
ASL is also used (sometimes with other sign languages) in the Philippines, Singapore, Hong Kong, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Chad, Gabon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Mauritania, Kenya, Madagascar, and Zimbabwe. Like other sign languages, its grammar is different from any spoken language. No one knows how many people use sign language, but some people think that between 500,000 and 2 million people in the U.S.A. alone use sign language. It is the third most used language in the United States, behind English and Spanish.
ASL includes fingerspelling. Fingerspelling is a way to show any letter of the English alphabet using one hand. Fingerspelling is also used to express numbers. Names of people and names of places can be fingerspelled.