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  1. No they would not. Below are some details on that.

    A common misconception is that sign languages are somehow dependent on oral languages, that is, that they are oral language spelled out in gesture, or that they were invented by hearing people. Hearing teachers in deaf schools, such as Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, are often incorrectly referred to as “inventors” of sign language.

    Manual alphabets (fingerspelling) are used in sign languages, mostly for proper names and technical or specialised vocabulary borrowed from spoken languages. The use of fingerspelling was once taken as evidence that sign languages were simplified versions of oral languages, but in fact it is merely one tool among many. Fingerspelling can sometimes be a source of new signs, which are called lexicalized signs.

    On the whole, deaf sign languages are independent of oral languages and follow their own paths of development. For example, British Sign Language and American Sign Language are quite different and mutually unintelligible, even though the hearing people of Britain and America share the same oral language.

    Similarly, countries which use a single oral language throughout may have two or more sign languages; whereas an area that contains more than one oral language might use only one sign language. South Africa, which has 11 official oral languages and a similar number of other widely used oral languages is a good example of this. It has only one sign language with two variants due to its history of having two major educational institutions for the deaf which have served different geographic areas of the country.

  2. There are many sign languages. In this country ASL (American Sign Language) is used. Each country has it’s own language. Many signs are visually related to the meaning of the word or phrase, so it’s likely a person who signs would recognize certain signs in other languages, much like you would recognize a word in another language that’s similar to the same word in your language. You would realize that espoza (which is probably spelled wrong) in Italian means the same thing as spouse in English. The word in Spanish is also similar.

    American Sign Language is a totally separate language from English. The English words are not just translated. There’s an entirely different syntax, and it can be quite confusing at first. My deaf friend emails using ASL syntax and sometimes it takes me a while to follow. She reads English just fine, she’s a college graduate after all, so she can read what I type. I’ve only taken 2 classes in ASL, and if I don’t use it on a regular basis, I just keep forgetting. I’d show you the sign for I forget if you were here. I use that one a lot.

  3. For the Nth time, this question is a broken record: Is there a universal language in this world? NO. Everybody speaks something different. Same thing goes for sign languages, too.

    It’s not LIKE a broken record, but it rather IS a broken record because: People aren’t caring enough to search for the questions before posting to see if there’s similar questions being posted before either here or elsewhere on Y!/A.

    It’s not only a broken record, it’s also a time waster.

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