I’m *thinking* about learning sign language.
However, before I start, I want to make sure I’m not starting some kind of “never-ending journey” in which it takes me years to even become intermediate.
I studied Korean for several years (including three years as an adult in Korea), and it took me nearly four years and about 1,400 hours of study before reaching the advanced level, and there are still many things that escape me. I’m not fluent.
Is sign language harder or easier to learn than Korean?
How does it compare to easier languages like Spanish and French?
Actually, to clarify, I’m interested in learning Japanese sign language (and very similar sign languages are used in Taiwan and Korea — I read that 70% of the signs are the same). I have lived in Korea, Taiwan, and I plan to move to Japan next year, so I think it would be a better choice for me than ASL. Is there a difference in complexity?
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I started taking classes and learned basic sign language in a few weeks, without much practice. It was much faster and easier than any other language I’ve studied (like Spanish).
I had to quit for other stuff but I’m sure it won’t take as long as Korean. Its put into a framework so its easy to learn with basic hand shapes and symbols repeated with different things.
It was designed to be user-friendly, other than normal languages which all evolved on their own.
Sign language is generally fairly difficult to learn, mostly due to the huge grammatical difference from English. Also note that there are multiple sign languages, but I assume you mean American Sign Language. Anyway, by sheer coincidence, I’ve heard ASL grammar is similar to Japanese Grammar. By extension, Korean grammar is nearly identical to Japanese grammar. You should have a slight leg up on other beginners.
Japanese Sign Language is distinct from spoken/written Japanese in both grammar and lexicon, although many Deaf signers will use Manually Coded Japanese / Pidgin Signed Japanese when signing to hearing or non-native JSL signers. The grammatical system shares many similarities with other national sign languages in its use of the complex visual space available, classifiers, and other complex forms.
Interestingly, JSL, ASL, and spoken Japanese all use a topic-comment grammatical system. This makes JSL and spoken Japanese more compatible than ASL and spoken English. This is one explanation for widespread use of MCJ / voiced JSL / Pidgin JSL forms present in Japan.
JSL doesn’t appear nearly as standardized as ASL (although ASL also has geographic and cultural/ethnic variation). Signs from the northern island (Hokkaido) are different from Tokyo signs; which are different from some southern signs. Nevertheless, if you are more or less fluent, it’s easy to learn the variations although it does cause more problems when signing in front of a crowd of people from different areas.
American Sign Languge (ASL) makes extensive use of fingerspelling and the morphology of some signs is related to an English word that distinguishes it from its general class (for example: FAMILY, GROUP, CLASS; all use the same basic morpheme (the hands moving in a circle inwards outwords; then use an additional morpheme derived from English ‘F’, ‘G’, or ‘C’ to distinguish between them). This shows the close relationship ASL has had with English; much like English has many load words from French (restaurant; clique) that help make word/meaning distinctions that English originally didn’t make.
JSL seems to make more use of mouthing in order to distinguish between signs. Whereas ASL would use the inital letter of the English word to distinguish, JSL uses the word mouthing. People in the U.S. have told me American Deaf also do this to a small amount as well; but it seems also in prevalent use in Europe. For example, the sign for “INTERPRETER (TSUUYAKU)” is the thumb of the closed fist of the dominant hand moving left-right in front of the mouth. This is also the sign to “INTRODUCE (SHOUKAI)”. The two sign-meanings are differentiated by context and by mouthing.
JSL has fingerspelling, but many people don’t use it widely. I saw a lot of what I would call “air writing” — especially of numbers and English letters — instead of fingerspelling at the national Deaf meeting. Fingerspelling is not used much in normal conversation, certainly not as much as ASL. For personal names and place names, there is a standardized set of “Kanji” signs that allow you to spell out your name using the Chinese characters in sign form. Mouthing is also used when spelling out names.