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What is Sign Language
A sign language (also 'signed language') is a language which uses manual communication instead of sound to convey meaning - simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's thoughts. Sign languages develop in deaf communities, which can include interpreters and friends and families of deaf people as well as people who are deaf or hearing-impaired themselves.However, contrary to popular belief, sign language is not universal. Wherever communities of deaf people exist, sign languages develop, but as with spoken languages, these vary from region to region. They are not based on the spoken language in the country of origin; in fact their complex spatial grammars are markedly different. However, various signed "modes" of spoken languages have been developed, such as Signed English and Walpiri Sign Language. Hundreds of sign languages are in use around the world and are at the core of local Deaf cultures.
Sign Language and Spoken Languages
A misconception sometimes held is that sign languages are dependent in some way on spoken languages, e.g. that they are merely the spelling out of the words of a spoken language using gestural symbols, or that they were invented by hearing people.On the whole, sign languages are independent of spoken languages and they follow their own developmental paths. For example, British Sign Language and American Sign Language are different and mutually unintelligible (other than iconic signs), even though the hearing people of Britain and America share the same spoken language.
Further proof of the separation of sign languages from spoken ones is the fact that sign languages exploit the unique features of the visual medium. Spoken language is aural and therefore linear. Only one sound can be made or received at a time whereas sign language is visual, hence, a whole scene can be taken in at once. Therefore, information can be loaded into many 'channels' and expressed simultaneously. As an illustration, in English, one could make the sentence, "I drove here." To add information about the drive though, one would have to make a longer sentence or even add an additional sentence. Such as, "I drove here and it was very pleasant." Or, "I drove here. It was a nice drive." However in American Sign Language, information about the pleasing nature of the drive can be conveyed simultaneously with the verb (drive) by taking advantage of the abilities of the visual mode of transmission which can take in non-manual signals (done with body posture and facial expression) at the same time as the manual sign signifying the verb, drive, is being seen and understood. Therefore, whereas in English the sentence "I drove here and it was very pleasant" is longer than the sentence, "I drove here", in American Sign Language both sentences are the same length.