Black American Sign Language
“The difference between BASL and ASL is that BASL got seasoning.”
Hi Friends!
Welcome to Issue 24 of this newsletter! Today’s topic is Black American Sign Language (BASL). Like many, I saw Nakia Smith’s (@itscharmay) viral videos about BASL on TikTok. I knew right away that I wanted to dig in and learn more. Black American Sign Language (BASL) or Black Sign Variation (BSV) is a dialect of American Sign Language (ASL) used most commonly by deaf Black Americans in the United States. The divergence from ASL was influenced largely by the segregation of schools in the South. Let’s go through a brief history and then I’ll share some resources and folks that I am learning from. This is definitely a topic that I will be continuing to learn more about, so if you have anything to add to this week’s blog post, let me know! Let’s get into it!
Key Terms
Black American Sign Language: Black American Sign Language (BASL) or Black Sign Variation (BSV) is a dialect of American Sign Language (ASL) used most commonly by deaf Black Americans in the United States.
American Sign Language: American Sign Language (ASL) is a complete, natural language that has the same linguistic properties as spoken languages, with grammar that differs from English. ASL is expressed by movements of the hands and face. There is no universal sign language. Different sign languages are used in different countries or regions.
deaf (Lowercase “d”): The word deaf is used to describe or identify anyone who has a severe hearing problem. Sometimes it is used to refer to people who are severely hard of hearing too.
Deaf (Uppercase “D”): Folks use Deaf with a capital D to refer to people who have been deaf all their lives, or since before they started to learn to talk. They are pre-lingually deaf. It is an important distinction, because Deaf people tend to communicate in sign language as their first language. For most Deaf people English is a second language.
Oralism: Places less emphasis on signing and more emphasis on teaching deaf students to speak and lip-read.
Ableism: Ableism is the discrimination of and social prejudice against people with disabilities based on the belief that typical abilities are superior. At its heart, ableism is rooted in the assumption that disabled people require ‘fixing’ and defines people by their disability. Like racism and sexism, ableism classifies entire groups of people as ‘less than,’ and includes harmful stereotypes, misconceptions, and generalizations of people with disabilities. Being deaf is considered a disability under the ADA.
Let’s Get Into It
A Brief History
Schools for Black deaf children in the United States began to emerge after the Civil War. The first permanent school for the deaf in the United States, which later came to be known as the American School for the Deaf, opened in 1817 in Hartford, Conn. The school enrolled its first Black student in 1825.
Segregation in the South in 1865 played a large role in Black ASL’s development.
Separation led to Black deaf schools’ differing immensely from their white counterparts. White schools tended to focus on an oral method of learning and provide an academic-based curriculum, while Black schools emphasized signing and offered vocational training.
In the 1870s and 1880s, white deaf schools moved toward oralism — which places less emphasis on signing and more emphasis on teaching deaf students to speak and lip-read. Because the education of white children was privileged over that of Black children, oralism was not as strictly applied to the Black deaf students. Oralist methods often forbade the use of sign language, so Black deaf students had more opportunities to use ASL than did their white peers.
The last Southern state to create an institution for Black deaf children was Louisiana in 1938. Black deaf children became a language community isolated from white deaf children, with different means of language socialization, allowing for different dialects to develop.
As schools began to integrate, students and teachers noticed differences in the way Black students and white students signed. Carolyn McCaskill, now professor of ASL and Deaf Studies at Gallaudet University, recalls the challenge of understanding the dialect of ASL used by her white principal and teachers after her segregated school of her youth integrated: “Even though they were signing, I didn’t understand,” she said. “And I didn’t understand why I didn’t understand.”
With the pandemic forcing many to flock to virtual social spaces, Isidore Niyongabo, president of National Black Deaf Advocates, said he had seen online interaction grow within his organization and across the Black deaf community as a whole. “We are starting to see an uptick with the recognition of the Black deaf culture within America,” Mr. Niyongabo said, adding that he expected it would “continue spreading throughout the world.”
Facts & Figures
Several scholars say that Black ASL is actually more aligned with early American Sign Language than contemporary ASL, which was influenced by French sign language.
Compare ASL with Black ASL and there are notable differences: Black ASL users tend to use more two-handed signs, and they often place signs around the forehead area, rather than lower on the body.
About 11 million Americans consider themselves deaf or hard of hearing, according to the Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community Survey, and Black people make up nearly 8 percent of that population.
From Nakia Smith
In her interview with the New York Times, Nakia (@itscharmay) talks about code switching, but with sign language. When she attended a school that consisted of primarily hearing students, she says: “I started to sign like other deaf students that don’t have deaf family,” said Ms. Smith, whose family has had deaf relatives in four of the last five generations. “I became good friends with them and signed like how they signed so they could feel comfortable.”
Viral Video With Her Grandfather
Viral Video With Her Grandparents
Resources
This is really my first week ever learning about BASL, so I am definitely no expert, but I hope you’re just as excited to learn as I am. Above are a bunch of great resources, as well as linked throughout this post. Let’s keep learning from folks that practice BASL and experts in that community. Next week, we’re talking about Lateral Oppression which occurs within marginalized groups where members strike out at each other as a result of being oppressed. I’ll see ya there!
