Will technology make American Sign Language obsolete?

I think it will stick around for face to face communication. Text messages can be delayed in delivery from time to time. If the ability to write was going to make sign language obsolete, it would have done it already with pen and paper.

no… people will still need to know the basics…just in case…But ponder this, will technology render speaking obsolete?

My crystal ball says 30 years from now ASL will seem as quaint and archaic as Morse code is today. Cochlear implants will use energy harvesting from embedded Peltier devices to operate as long at the owner is alive. The receivers will be adjustable to pick up audio from below 100 Hz to 40 kHz and will have equalization settings that will surpass “normal” hearing. The input will be directly inputted and analyzed by the personal assistant device that everyone will have. Want to know what bird made that sound? Go ask the deaf guy.
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@worriedguy Do you think the deaf community will be more in favor of the cochlear implants as well at that time? From my nursing experience, a lot of the deaf community is against them right now.

I think the opposite of this. I see many more people are learning asl now, with that some schools are now giving it as an elective. I took asl 1 freshman year and asl 2 my sophomore year, they didn’t count as two years of a foreign language for the college requirement though, at least not yet. My teacher said that maybe next year (my senior year) our school will count it as college credit. Even if it doesn’t count I think people will continue to take it because they might see it as a fun language to have learned like I do.

Not at all. Many of us don’t use any of that hi tech crap. It is dehumanizing and ruins an otherwise lovely day. Try going out with none of your stuff and go swimming, or skateboarding, or do something outside that requires no technological intervention.

I would prefer to sign with someone as opposed to texting them while they are right on front of me.

Just like writing hasn’t eliminated speaking, texting won’t eliminate ASL. If for no other reason than the nuance is often lost in written words. Sign allows for body language and other physical cues.

I have a lot to say on this matter, but to avoid being too much of a teal deer, I’m just going to focus on cochlear implants for this post. People think cochlear implants are the end all and be all of “curing” deafness, but I don’t think it’s going to happen any time soon.

Cochlear implants are not covered by many insurance companies and they are VERY expensive. There are many people who just can’t afford them (and many of them are not poor—they are just really really expensive. Right now, even though there are between 160 and 260 per 100,000 people who qualify as needing the implants, only 2 or 3 per 100,000 people actually get them. According to the website below, people are hoping that in the future 1 out of every 3 people who need them will actually get them. Those aren’t good statistics.

http://www.cochlear.org/sys-tmpl/door/

Also, the implants aren’t a one time deal. They need to be replaced and they can be damaged. And that costs money. I was reading about a family that had to wait a few years to get their daughter’s implants updated and fixed—she only had them a few years before they went bad and she was in a critical time in her language development. It wasn’t good.

You don’t seem to be able to wear them everywhere. I don’t think you can really wear them in the pool. (Though I have seen parents rig up some weird looking waterproof stuff that “mostly” worked, according to them)

I need to stop because it’s already getting too long. I’ll post more about it—I’ve got a lot to say about ASL, but don’t want to get TOO long winded.

Agree with @Ben_Dover…

What you have to understand about sign language is that it’s more than “words”... there’s a whole culture of communication that comes with language. It’s being able to speak face to face and contain all the nuances (volume, sarcasm, etc) that cannot be conveyed through a text message. Being deaf isn’t about just not hearing, it’s to be part of community that has a different language and customs/ awareness. So even if cochlea implants were at a point where technologically perfect, signing is so ingrained into the identity of many deaf communities that there would be resistance to give it up.

I hope I didn’t offend anyone. I’m new to all this.

I didn’t think it would, but was having trouble putting into words as to why.

@keobooks The costs for CIs will come down radically while the capabilities have the potential to rise to beyond typical “normal” hearing.

@Seaofclouds The units that are out now are expensive, troublesome and have poor performance. That will change.
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In amateur radio, there are groups that still use Morse code. The way the person taps the keys is called his “fist” and pros can tell who is sending by the nuances of the dots and dashes. If you get the chance go to a Hamfest in your area and look at the attendance. The typical attendee will be male, over 60, walking around looking at stuff they used to own. The younger crowd have moved on to TXT and voice with high tech UHF and uWave radios. Sure, Morse code is around but its use is dropping about the rate as the life expectancy of someone born in 1950. If you want to talk to a wide audience Morse is not the way to do it.
In my crystal ball CIs will rock. Music will be produced that will have strains only CI users can hear.

”.... .. .... ..” = “hi hi” = “lol” in text speak.

people with in the Deaf community, tend to look down upon coclear implants for many reasons. On of the most significant reasons being deafness is not seen as a disability to them and people who’ve
educated themselves on Deaf culture andsign Language is the routr of their culture.
Also, because some Deaf people know English does not mean
ALL deaf people know English, they are two totally seperate lagnuages
and use different syntax etc.
I don’t think signing will become obsolete…

And we can only guess at the technology advances due to stem cell research. Who needs a a CI when you can grow your own?

In 2050 will we see this?
Kid: “But Mom! I want to hear from 20kHz to 40kHz! Can I get one please?”
Mom: “Sorry, No! We already bought you lens corrections, teeth straightening, leg lengthening, hair augmentation and body enhancements, last year. You’ll have to wait until next year for your acoustic imager. Start saving your C-notes”

I don’t like that sign language is being compared to Morse code. It’s not a direct translation of English into “gestures”, but a completely unique language with it’s own unique grammar and syntax. There are many things that don’t fully translate well from one language to another, because of certain nuances that both languages have.

I think many hearing people have a mistake notion that hearing people invented sign language as a way to communicate with the deaf. But that’s very far from the truth. Sign language carried on mostly in secret for a long time between deaf people in institutions and schools. They were desperate to communicate, and lip reading and speaking was not cutting it for people born deaf.

Until as late as the 1980’s, there has been a lot of controversy about the language and whether or not to even bother teaching it to the deaf, and at certain times hearing teachers in deaf institutions would ban sign language throughout time. There has always been a layer of hostility against ASL. Some decades the layer was thicker than others.

Anyway. I think cochlear implants are another flag for anti-ASL people to wave around. ESPECIALLY with the way American Health insurance works, even with the very slight adjustments made in this administration, that implants will become affordable to everyone any time soon.

Also, adding to what’s been said above by @keobooks Sign Language is as varied and complex as the English language. I studied stage one British Sign Language (BSL) 11 years ago, which will be very different from ASL. There are variations and dialects in the language within the uk, so across the water it will vary greatly I imagine. It is an amazing language, and so full of nuances. With so many in the deaf community having bad feelings about cochlea implants (the angle being, that it is not a fault to be corrected, just a difference), not to mention the quality of sound these do or do not give, I do not see the language dying out, not now nor any time soon.

@keobooks
Just for the record, Morse code has dialects, with grammar and syntax too. It is not just a translation of English into dots and dashes any more than ASL is simply a translation of the alphabet to signs. Both are much richer.
(It is so nerdy and dated I am a little embarrassed to admit I know it.)
At the bottom of my two previous posts I threw in a little morse code for your enjoyment. “HI” means “laughing” because it sounds like it. .... ..
CQ DX means I’m looking to hear from someone from overseas. QTH means “What is your location?”
Other languages have their own shorthand and vocabulary. but there are some that are standardized.
90 years ago Morse was all we had. Now look at what we use. Unthinkable 30 years ago!
Who knows, we might communicate by thought transference in the future.
I have faith in technology and the pace at which it advances.

ASL is now recognized by many Colleges and Universities as a second language. It can fulfill the second language requirements for many students.

I think it would be a disservice to communication if we lost ASL (or other sign language) because of technology like texting, etc. But like many who have commented, I don’t think it would for the same reason people still speak to each other…it’s faster, more nuanced, and more communicative than the text alternatives.

I also think about whether it is our best option for a universal language (signing generally).

My sister says ASL makes shopping easier. She and her husband each take a cart and start at opposite ends of the store. They get to the end of the aisle and sign what they need/want to each other.

@worriedguy , still, Morse code is much simpler than ASL. And it’s a constructed language. Even if it indeed does have dialects, it was artificially created specifically to send alphabet letters via wire. Except for some POWs in Viet Nam I read about, I’ve never heard of anyone who used Morse code as a primary language for any length of time. And I also doubt that anyone has learned it as a first language and uses it as their every day main mode of communication.

One thing about sign language—it’s vital for infants and toddlers to be exposed to language as young as possible. If you have a deaf child, you can’t rely on just popping in an implant the day they are born. It doesn’t work that way. The wait could be two or three years—if you can even manage to get one at all—and there are many birth defects that cause deafness that cannot be helped at all by the implants.

I read a book that mentioned an exciting discovery made by linguists a few decades ago. They discovered that hearing and deaf children of deaf parents could use ASL at a much younger age than anyone thought possible for a child to use any language. At less than three months old, an infant can say “milk” or “wet” to communicate basic needs. It was unsure as to whether the infants were actually making an effort to communicate, or using the sign to soothe themselves, but the were using the signs and the parents could tell what they babies were saying.

It changed a lot about what linguists and neurologists thought about how we acquire language. Babies seem neurologically ready to talk long before they are coordinated enough to get their lips, teeth (well, gums) and tongue working enough to speak. Sign language is easier for them to work out and babies exposed to ASL can communicate more complex thoughts than they ever could by speaking. There are “baby sign” books out there, but I think they are simplified more for the non ASL speaking parent. A baby seems perfectly capable of learning and communicating in sign language.

I’m not into “superparenting” and I’d never teach a baby ASL just to show what a little genius she is—but I think it would be a great shame to lose a language that can show us so much about how our brains grow and develop.

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One more thing—as for the texting and whatnot. I’ve been through four hurricanes—four times with major power outages that lasted over a week or so. I’ve been on camping trips that lasted over a week. There are just times where you can’t plug in your little devices and they eventually go dead. How much would it suck to have to rely totally on something that could conk out or run out of juice when you want to speak? How much would it suck to have a deaf kid with ADHD lose their little device all the time and then they’d be speechless?

It’s always good to have forms of communication that don’t involve anything except your own body to work.