Is learning sign language easier for adults than learning a spoken language? Let’s say for purpose of this discussion the spoken language is one of the easier ones like Spanish or Japanese.
Since when is Japanese easy for an English-speaking person?
Or Spanish. It’s “easy” because it’s one of the most phonetic of languages, but that just means it’s easy to write it once you do speak it.
I don’t think this is right.
A Spanish noob who doesn’t know the word for honey, say, will see the word the next time she buys some, and will know how to pronounce it.
A world of difference from, say, English (where she may not be sure how to pronounce the word), or Japanese (where she may have no idea how to say the word because it uses Kanji characters that are new to her)
Not saying that makes Spanish “easy”, but it’s definitely an advantage, for noobs as well as more advanced speakers.
A lot of the signs of ASL are intuitive for any person who knows basic gestures, however there are many signs which are simply abstract representations of their target meaning. What I found most difficult was learning the 3D nature of ASL. For example in spoken languages the order you place your words indicates their relation (this is syntax).
English: Subject(actor) Verb(action) Object(recipient) - She hit him (SVO)
The syntax of ASL is a bit different. Officially in ASL you should introduce the Agents then the Action (this greatly aids in clarity).
ASL: Subject Object Verb - She him hit (SOV)
However the 3D nature of ASL means that sometimes the order you introduce the Agents/Objects/etc isn’t important because their relationship is indicated by the 3D-space and movement. Thus a sentence like the one below could be understandable.
ASL: Object Subject Verb - him She hit (OSV)
This is possible because signers are not limited to a linear/1D line of text/speech. They can use the full 3D real-space in front of them to paint an image/story/etc of meaning (maybe 4D since signers use the temporal aspect of time too). So while sign language is easy is some aspects it is harder in others…
according to wiki’s reference … sign-language can be even more proprietary than spoken languages … at over 300 distinct “dialects” … not for the weak-minded.
As a spoken language, Japanese is on the easier side because the phonemes are relatively easy to pronounce, and there are no tones.
It’s difficult for native English because the grammar is reversed from English, the lack of similar vocabulary and the writing system. However, if you were an alien and only going to learn to speak without reading, it’s not that difficult.
As far as the neglected question of if learning a sign language would be easier or harder than learning to speak, as someone who learned Japanese I’d go with more difficult. It would be sort of lie having to learn to write the kanji in addition to learning the words.
It depends on what you are going for. If you just want to get by, Deaf adults are very forgiving, and most of them are used to dealing with hearing people who “sort of” know “sign language.” Getting to the point where you can communicate about simple things is easier than most spoken languages, because you won’t find a community of spoken language users so forgiving, I don’t think.
However, interpreter proficiency is difficult. If you want to be good enough to pass as a Deaf person (not something you should be doing, I’m using it as a theoretical measure of fluency), it takes work. I was there. I went to Gallaudet, and put in the hours. But that doesn’t need to be your goal.
Not sure what you mean by “dialects” or “proprietary” in this context – that is a list of 300 different languages. The fact that there are 300 different sign languages doesn’t make it hard to learn one particular sign language, any more than the fact that there are 6000 spoken languages on earth makes it harder to learn Spanish.
–Mark
If you were an alien, no language is any harder than any other. Chinese infants don’t find it harder to learn Chinese than American infants do learning English. A Chinese speaker comfortable with tones might be arguing that an alien would find Chinese easier than English because Chinese has no consonant clusters. It’s just what you’re used to.
–Mark
Note that the OP specified “as an adult”. And, as an adult, the difficulty of learning a new language is related to:
- How similar is the language to one you already know
- How similar are the phonemes to a language you already know
- How similar is the grammar to a language you already know
ASL is going to differ strongly in all of those categories. Remember, it’s not just “signed English”, but a completely different language. (In that case gesture = phoneme.)
Which is pretty much exactly what I said, it’s what you’re used to.
I would argue that a sign language gesture is equivalent to a spoken “word”, while the components of the gesture, like hand shape or direction of movement, are equivalent to spoken “phonemes”. When I learned (the rudiments of) ASL, the initial difficulties were the same as in learning any language, mostly memorizing all the “words”. But unlike in spoken languages, there are memorization cues available even though there are no English cognates. For example, the sign for “baby” resembles a someone rocking a baby, and the sign for “marry” involves clasping two hands together.
–Mark
Also, add “The same alphabet”, which greatly accelerates the early study of building vocabulary through visual exposure to written language.