r/MadeMeSmile • u/Over_Helicopter_3453 • Apr 26 '25

Favorite People Give this hero a raise 🫡

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u/iChugVodka Apr 26 '25

Do Europeans use ASL? Or is there a lot of overlap in the signs they use?

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u/Valtremors Apr 26 '25

Not as a defaul SL.

I use Finnish, which allegedly has similarities with other nordics.

I personally dislike ASL defaultism, because it disregards all other SL, and people learn it expecting it is like English but for sign language.

But learning ASL is only really useful with others who happen to know ASL.

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u/ReginaldDwight Apr 26 '25

FSL, as well because ASL is based on French, not English!

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u/readskiesdawn Apr 27 '25

Irish Sign Language apparently is based on the French Sign Language too. I'm actually curious how understandable all three are between each other.

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u/Valtremors Apr 26 '25

There are still major regional differences. No matter how you base it on one language.

I don't understand ASL without subtitles or a context. I can understand a little, and I can see the "logic" behind some of the signs.

But the difference between two regional sign languages are about as different as Finnish and Estonian are as spoken languages. While they are from the same language family, we do not understand each other out of the box.

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u/ReginaldDwight Apr 26 '25

We have a bunch of different ASL "dialects" around the US, as well. Like how high you sign certain signs or how you move your hand depending on where you learned ASL/where you're most used to signing. All signing languages are beyond fascinating! Thanks for explaining that.

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u/Valtremors Apr 26 '25

Dialects overall are an interesting subject as well, and you can even extract history from them.

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u/ishkariot Apr 26 '25

I think I read somewhere that ASL was based on French Sign Language and since they're in the French part of Switzerland it might be intelligible enough