statistics on official recognition of SLs?

[Barbara Gerner De Garcia]

Interesting - the 2005 article lists ASL as the 3rd most used language- but
Wikipedia has it as the #1.
Barbara

On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 5:12 PM, Christopher Greene-Szmadzinski <
christopher.blue at gmail.com> wrote:

> Additionally, here's a research study that explains the numbers behind
> ASL users and why it is problematic to determine "rank" of language
> use when it come to ASL especially in the United States:
>
> http://research.gallaudet.edu/Publications/ASL_Users.pdf
>
> On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 5:07 PM, Barbara Gerner De Garcia
> <barbara.gerner.de.garcia at gallaudet.edu> wrote:
> > Yes, most certainly :)
> > Barbara
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 4:49 PM, Mark A. Mandel <mamandel at ldc.upenn.edu>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> May I have your permission to quote that paragraph, attributed to you,
> as
> >> a citation on the article's Discussion page for deleting that sentence?
> >> -- Mark
> >>
> >> On 12.01.31, at 2:30 PM, Barbara Gerner De Garcia wrote:
> >>
> >> American Sign Language is the most used minority language yet almost the
> >> only minority language which lacks official government
> recognition.[citation
> >> needed]
> >>
> >> I just taught a course on language rights Fall semester and this
> statement
> >> is totally inaccurate. First of all, ASL is not the most used "minority"
> >> language. According to the US Census publication Language Use in the US
> 2007
> >> (Shin & Kominsky, 2010), over 34 million residents age 5 and over speak
> >> Spanish at home.  When we cite statistics for ASL "users" we tend to
> include
> >> hearing people who have learned ASL (high school and college students).
> If
> >> we add those groups to the number of people in the US who "use"
> Spanish, you
> >> can see that the number easily would exceed the number of those who
> "use"
> >> ASL.  Second, the phrase "official government recognition" is vague.
> In the
> >> U.S., there is no official language, period. We do have protections in
> the
> >> U.S. against discrimination based on the language a person uses, but
> there
> >> are no "affirmative" or "positive" language rights that guarantee a
> person
> >> the right to use their language. The WFD has linguistic human rights for
> >> sign language users at the core of its positions, and the UNCRPD - UN
> >> Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities also expresses
> sign
> >> language rights as the core issue for people who are Deaf and Deaf
> >> education.
> >>
> >> Barbara Gerner de Garcia
> >> p.s. Although I am guilty of often using Wikipedia, this statement helps
> >> illuminate why my university suggests that faculty include a statement
> on
> >> their syllabi that the use of Wikipedia is prohibited for student work
> (BTW,
> >> I do not have such a statement on any of my syllabi).
> >>
> >> On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 1:42 PM, Mark A.Mandel <mamandel at ldc.upenn.edu>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> The Wikipedia article "Minority languages" includes the paragraph
> >>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_language#Controversy)
> >>>
> >>> ---
> >>> Signed languages are often not recognized as true natural languages
> even
> >>> though they are supported by extensive research. In the United States,
> for
> >>> example, American Sign Language is the most used minority language yet
> >>> almost the only minority language which lacks official government
> >>> recognition.[citation needed]
> >>> ---
> >>>
> >>> How accurate are these statements? Can the paragraph and the article be
> >>> improved with reliable and recent data?
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Mark A. Mandel
> >>> Linguistic Data Consortium
> >>> University of Pennsylvania
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Dr. Barbara Gerner de Garcia, Professor and Chair
> >> Department of Educational Foundations and Research
> >> Gallaudet University
> >> 800 Florida Ave NE
> >> Washington, DC 20002-3695
> >>
> >> Phone: 202-651-5207
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Dr. Barbara Gerner de Garcia, Professor and Chair
> > Department of Educational Foundations and Research
> > Gallaudet University
> > 800 Florida Ave NE
> > Washington, DC 20002-3695
> >
> > Phone: 202-651-5207
>
>


-- 
Dr. Barbara Gerner de Garcia, Professor and Chair
Department of Educational Foundations and Research
Gallaudet University
800 Florida Ave NE
Washington, DC 20002-3695

Phone: 202-651-5207
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/slling-l/attachments/20120131/ca80beda/attachment.htm>