There is no free handwriting or typing within ASL rather, we use a combination of signs, expressions, and even finger spelling to communicate our thoughts. The structure of sentences within ASL also varies greatly from that of English. For example, in English we would ask a question like, “Did you see the game yesterday?” In ASL, this would roughly translate to “Yesterday, game watch you?” The convention for sentences in ASL is “Time” + “Subject” + “Verb” + “Object” (+ “Time” as you can end sentences with the time as well). Simple sentences contain one independent clause whereas complex sentences contain an independent clause and one or more dependent clauses. In ASL, dependent clause can refer to conjunctions such as “If,” “But,” and rhetorical questions like “How,” and “Why.” My previous knowledge regarding parts of speech, government, and agreement within English actually made it more difficult for me to initially get comfortable with the ASL format. English is more commonly known and structured whereas in comparison ASL is more obscure and forgiving with its syntax. When I am thinking how to say something, I hear my own inner monologue in English but when signing that sentence, I tend to forget ASL’s nuances and start doing direct word-for-sign translations—this is known as Signed Exact English (SEE) and is holistically different from ASL. My previous English education has in a way transformed the way I think and interpret the world. As I continue on my ASL learning journey, I hope to be able to become more natural with translating between English and ASL. The following image is a sample of the English alphabet in ASL.
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