
Is American Sign Language a ‘foreign’ language? - fogus
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-sign-language-20100416,0,2337497.story
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DanielStraight
Spanish is not "foreign" in much of the U.S. either. I would consider the use
of the word "foreign" in "foreign language" to be a meaningless coincidence.
The point is not whether people can speak an exotic language. The point is
whether people can speak a second (or third, or fourth, etc.) language which
is distinct from their native language, whether they have applied themselves
to learning a means of communication different from the one they were raised
with.

It seems from reading the article that a lot of people still don't get that
ASL is distinct from English. That a foreign language chair would say ASL is
not sufficient to sustain a culture is absurd. One of the first things my
German professor told me when I was in school was that German is not English
in code. The same goes for all languages, including ASL.

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jeffcoat
It has its own grammar, distinct from English, its own vocabulary, and native
speakers -- what more do you want from a language?

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cperciva
I think everybody agrees that ASL is a _language_. The question is whether it
qualifies as a _foreign_ language.

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Semiapies
As "foreign language" in this context means "not English", the answer is
_yes_.

