American Sign Language
E133186
American Sign Language is a natural visual-gestural language used primarily by Deaf communities in the United States and parts of Canada, with its own distinct grammar and vocabulary separate from spoken English.
All labels observed (4)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| American Sign Language canonical | 43 |
| American Sign Language family | 2 |
| ASL | 1 |
| American Sign Language (partially) | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1173419 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: American Sign Language Context triple: [Korean Sign Language, notMutuallyIntelligibleWith, American Sign Language]
-
A.
Australian Sign Language
Australian Sign Language (Auslan) is the primary sign language of the Australian Deaf community, developed from British Sign Language and used for everyday communication, education, and cultural expression.
-
B.
British Sign Language
British Sign Language is the primary sign language used by Deaf communities in the United Kingdom, with its own distinct grammar, vocabulary, and historical development separate from spoken English.
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C.
Korean Sign Language
Korean Sign Language is the primary visual-gestural language used by the Deaf community in South Korea, with its own distinct grammar and vocabulary separate from spoken Korean.
-
D.
New Zealand Sign Language
New Zealand Sign Language is the primary sign language of the Deaf community in New Zealand and one of the country’s official languages, known for its own distinct grammar and vocabulary.
-
E.
Finnish Sign Language
Finnish Sign Language is the primary visual-gestural language of the Finnish Deaf community, with its own grammar and vocabulary distinct from spoken Finnish.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: American Sign Language Target entity description: American Sign Language is a natural visual-gestural language used primarily by Deaf communities in the United States and parts of Canada, with its own distinct grammar and vocabulary separate from spoken English.
-
A.
Australian Sign Language
Australian Sign Language (Auslan) is the primary sign language of the Australian Deaf community, developed from British Sign Language and used for everyday communication, education, and cultural expression.
-
B.
British Sign Language
British Sign Language is the primary sign language used by Deaf communities in the United Kingdom, with its own distinct grammar, vocabulary, and historical development separate from spoken English.
-
C.
Korean Sign Language
Korean Sign Language is the primary visual-gestural language used by the Deaf community in South Korea, with its own distinct grammar and vocabulary separate from spoken Korean.
-
D.
New Zealand Sign Language
New Zealand Sign Language is the primary sign language of the Deaf community in New Zealand and one of the country’s official languages, known for its own distinct grammar and vocabulary.
-
E.
Finnish Sign Language
Finnish Sign Language is the primary visual-gestural language of the Finnish Deaf community, with its own grammar and vocabulary distinct from spoken Finnish.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (68)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
language of the Deaf community
ⓘ
natural language ⓘ sign language ⓘ visual-gestural language ⓘ |
| alsoKnownAs |
American Sign Language
ⓘ
surface form:
ASL
|
| countryOfUse |
Canada
ⓘ
United States of America ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| hasAncestor | Old French Sign Language ⓘ |
| hasApproximateNumberOfUsers |
hundreds of thousands
ⓘ
over 500,000 in the United States (various estimates) ⓘ |
| hasCommunity |
Deaf culture in Canada
ⓘ
Deaf culture in the United States ⓘ |
| hasDistinctGrammarFrom | English ⓘ |
| hasDistinctVocabularyFrom | English ⓘ |
| hasGlottocode | asli1244 ⓘ |
| hasInfluenceFrom |
Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language
ⓘ
various village sign languages in the United States ⓘ |
| hasISO6393Code | ase ⓘ |
| hasLinguisticResearchBy |
Carol Padden
ⓘ
Ceil Lucas ⓘ Ursula Bellugi ⓘ William C. Stokoe ⓘ |
| hasPhonologicalParameters |
handshape
ⓘ
location ⓘ movement ⓘ non-manual signals ⓘ orientation ⓘ |
| hasWordOrder |
SVO
ⓘ
topic-comment ⓘ |
| hasWritingSystem |
can be transcribed with SignWriting
ⓘ
can be transcribed with Stokoe notation ⓘ no widely used native writing system ⓘ |
| isNot | signed form of English ⓘ |
| languageFamily | French Sign Language family ⓘ |
| modality | manual-visual ⓘ |
| notMutuallyIntelligibleWith |
Australian Sign Language
ⓘ
British Sign Language ⓘ |
| primaryUsers |
Deaf people in English-speaking parts of Canada
ⓘ
Deaf people in the United States ⓘ children of Deaf adults ⓘ sign language interpreters ⓘ |
| recognizedAs |
language of instruction in some schools for the Deaf
ⓘ
minority language in some U.S. states ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
Langue des signes québécoise
ⓘ
Nicaraguan Sign Language ⓘ |
| taughtAt |
community colleges
ⓘ
high schools as a foreign language option ⓘ universities in the United States ⓘ |
| usedFor |
academic instruction
ⓘ
everyday communication among Deaf people ⓘ religious services ⓘ storytelling and poetry ⓘ theater and performance ⓘ |
| usedIn |
bilingual-bicultural Deaf education programs
ⓘ
interpreting for public services ⓘ television and media accessibility ⓘ video relay services ⓘ |
| uses |
body posture
ⓘ
classifier constructions ⓘ directional verbs ⓘ facial expressions ⓘ handshapes ⓘ locations in signing space ⓘ movements ⓘ non-manual markers ⓘ palm orientations ⓘ role shift ⓘ spatial grammar ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: American Sign Language Description of subject: American Sign Language is a natural visual-gestural language used primarily by Deaf communities in the United States and parts of Canada, with its own distinct grammar and vocabulary separate from spoken English.
Referenced by (47)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject surface form:
Columbia Institution for the Deaf
this entity surface form:
American Sign Language family
subject surface form:
Auslan
subject surface form:
CODA
subject surface form:
Glenn Holland
this entity surface form:
ASL
this entity surface form:
American Sign Language family
subject surface form:
Jamaican Sign Language
subject surface form:
Jamaican Sign Language
this entity surface form:
American Sign Language (partially)
subject surface form:
Swedish Sign Language