History of Sign Language
Linguistics
Deaf Culture
100

The earliest known mention of sign language comes from this ancient civilization.

What is Ancient Greece?

100

We use them to describe how a sign behaves within the signer's space.

What are parameters?

100
A name given to a person by sign language users that is a single sign, often a word that describes the person's character. This name takes the place of fingerspelling your name among friends and colleagues.

What is a sign name?

200

This Greek philosopher believed speech was the path to learning, and therefore people who could not hear or speak could not learn.

Who is Aristotle?

200

Two words from two different languages share the same parameters and meaning.

What are cognates?

200

True or false:
Deaf people may use tapping, flashing lights, or waving to get attention, which can sometimes make hearing individuals feel uncomfortable or unsure of how to respond.

True

300

This country produced several major figures in the history of sign language, and had a major impact on the development of American Sign Language.

What is France?
300

Among the five parameters, this one is not taken into consideration when analyzing cognates.

What is facial expression?

300

This is the percentage of hearing loss you must have in order to be part of the deaf community.

Trick question: anyone with hearing loss and many of their hearing neighbors, relatives, partners, and friends can be part of the deaf community.

400

This New England community featured an abnormally large number of deaf people due to a genetic condition. Everyone there, deaf or not, was fluent in the local sign language and deaf people were fully integrated into everyday life, leading to an influx of deaf immigrants.

What is Martha's Vineyard?

400

It's a group of languages that share a common ancestor, or "proto-language," and therefore exhibit significant similarities in vocabulary, grammar, and sign/sound patterns

What is a language family?

400

This group believes that teaching deaf people to speak is better than teaching them to use sign language. They were prominent in the 1800s and early 1900s, but have become less prominent since the 1960s when sign language became dominant in deaf schools.

Who are the Oralists?

500

A man singularly important in the establishing of education for deaf people and developing professional networks of sign language communicators and educators. He was French, but founded schools and made connections in England and the United States as well.

Who is Thomas Gallaudet?

500

True or false:
All sign languages have fingerspelling.

False

500

This influential and passionate oralist also invented the telephone.

Who is Alexander Graham Bell?