Word Salad (1956)

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 2/4/03 11:24:42 PM Eastern Standard Time, mam at THEWORLD.COM
writes:

> American signers
>  traveling in France say that French Sign Language feels very familiar to
>  them, and it only takes them a few days to start communicating easily
>  (though not at all fluently) with French signers. In contrast, American
>  signers watching British Sign Language see nothing but finger salad.

Not surprising.  ASL (American Sign Language) comes from France.  British
Sign Language is home-grown.

from URL http://pr.gallaudet.edu/VisitorsCenter/GallaudetHistory/index.html

<begin quote>
Gallaudet's goal, to serve as an itinerant preacher, was put aside when he
met Alice Cogswell, the 9 years old deaf daughter of a neighbor, Dr. Mason
Cogswell. Cogswell, a prominent Hartford Physician, was concerned about
proper education for his daughter. He asked Gallaudet to travel to Europe to
study methods for teaching deaf students, especially those of the Braidwood
family in England. Gallaudet found the Braidwoods unwilling to share
knowledge of their oral communication method. At the same time, he was not
satisfied that the oral method produced desirable results. While still in
Great Britain, he met the Abbe Sicard, head of the Institut Royal des
Sourds-Muets in Paris, and two of its deaf faculty members, Laurent Clerc and
Jean Massieu. Sicard invited Gallaudet to Paris to study the school's method
of teaching deaf students using manual communication. Impressed with the
manual method, Gallaudet studied teaching methodology under Sicard, learning
sign language from Massieu and Clerc, who were both highly educated graduates
of the school.
<end quote>

       - James A. Landau