The Sign Langauge is different

I belong to a brownie pack and we are working on our Disability Awareness badge. One of the items for the badge is to cover sign language. Luckily for all of us leaders, one of our brownies' mom (or should that be mum) knows how to do it.

I made of the cards to had out and as the mom started talking about it, I realized that the alphabet was different from the one I learned as a child. Once I think I know everything, I am thrown a curve ball   Then I began to wonder, could someone speaking BSL (British Sign Language) understand someone speaking ASL (American Sign Language).

For starters, BSL generally use both hands for spelling out the alphabet using both hands; whereas ASL uses only one and as you can see most of them are different.

 BSL Image by Cowplopmorris
ASL



















ASL speakers cannot not speak with BSL or Austraian SL speakers. The ASL is closer to the French SL and is used in most of North America and many countries in Africa. It is a mixture of FSL and some other signs that people were using in the US particularly in homes and from the Native American tribes.

BSL is interesting because they have accents in their language. The Scottish use some words that people in other areas don't and people in Manchester count differently. It is distinct from Irish SL.

I just thought this was interesting and thought I would share!