How Many Signs Are There in American Sign Language?

December 27, 2011

Be specific and document your answer. No guessing or you'll defacto not get best answer.

1 comment… read it below or add one

hindisikhnewaalaa January 13, 2009 at 12:05 pm: The 'Gallaudet Survival Guide to Signing' (1987) boasts 'more than 500 of the most commonly used signs'. I don't happen to have the more compendious dictionaries at hand, but you can be sure that ASL has many more than 500 signs.

What counts as a distinct and individual sign is relative to the criteria chosen, just as one may or may not choose to count English words like 'capacity' and 'capability' as two distinct words, or to count them as one word with two derived forms.

Similar examples are unavoidable in all sign languages. For example, the signs in ASL for 'defecation' and 'diarrhea' differ principally in duration. Whether to count these as variants of one sign or as two distinct signs depends on the linguistic approach chosen.

The question 'how many signs in ASL' is thus moot.