Tag Archives: American Sign Language

Online ASL dictionary

Are you learning American Sign Language? Need a way to learn new words and phrases outside of the classroom? Signing Savvy may well be the solution. Founded in 2009 by John Miller, a former teacher of deaf and hard of hearing children, the website is a video database of American Sign Language. The site is(…)


Sign language by phone

The first device to transmit American Sign Language (ASL) by phone is being developed by researchers in America. Engineers at the University of Washington are currently testing the tool, which uses video technology to transmit the signs. The field test is aimed at seeing how people use the technology in their everyday lives, with the(…)


Sign language from space

American Sign Language (ASL) has been given a boost from an unlikely source – the International Space Station. Astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson delivered the space station’s first address to the deaf community – a six-minute video for deaf children. The video aims to give children a glimpse of what life is like as an astronaut,(…)


Is ASL a foreign language?

There is debate in colleges across America about the status of American Sign Language, according to an article in the Chicago Tribune. Whilst some view it is a foreign language, and thus available for college credit, others argue that an indigenous language cannot by definition be ‘foreign’. ASL has origins in Old French Sign Language,(…)