YES! but why?
Before we get into the topic, let's discuss some myths and misconceptions regarding Sign Language. There are actually many, but for the context of this post I will focus on four regarding its linguistic aspects: · Sign Language is not universal: same as oral languages, SLs can be classified in families and branches, and most of them aren't related at all. See: SL Family Tree.
(Note: Monastic Sign Languages were originally Spanish! They were developed by Dom Pedro Ponce de León in the 16th Century and then taken to France in the 18th Century and developed by Charles-Michel de l'Épée. How cool is that!?).
· Different SLs are not mutually intelligible: a signer in Spanish Sign Language (LSE) probably won't understand American Sign Language (ASL), and surely won't get much of the British one, since it belongs to a completely different family (unlike Spanish and English Oral Languages). Honestly, even signers of LSE from different regions of Spain may find it troublesome to communicate sometimes...
· And that's because SLs are not based on the oral language in their regions. For example, LSE is not based on the Spanish Oral Language, although some signs may be taken from its vocabulary.
· Also, SLs are not mime, although some signs could totally resemble it, because it's a spatial-visual language.
So what is Sign Language?
When we mention SL we're talking about REAL language, one that serves all the communicative purposes of any oral language, but its main difference is that SL is nonlinear like oral language is (strings of words, one after the other, even though it is common), but three-dimensional and often simultaneous. But how?
When we sign we can communicate the interactions of several subjects and objects simultaneously by representing them with our hands or fingers, we can show their spatial positions and interactions, their movements and their emotions, all at once! This happens thanks to a type of sign called "classifier" that represents one physical entity (person, animal or object) and it allows us putting it into a visual, 3-D environment.
Here you can see an example of the uses of a classifier in LSE, by María Ortiz:
Advantages of learning Sign Language
If we consider the Stages of First Language Acquisition and linguistic development, we can find that babies tend to learn and utter their very first words around their first year of life. Oral language communication requires a complex, neurological development since several different areas of the brain need to work together to create the adequate neural networks and the connections between the acoustic signals and the visual tokens for the concepts that build our vocabulary and grammar structure. This is crucial in understanding the pace at how oral language develops.
However, it has been thoroughly studied how babies can acquire signing skills and their first signs in communication as early as 4 months, way before their first oral words. This means a difference of about 6 months in a crucial process for their intellectual development. Learning and using SL can be a tremendous boost at their early stages of linguistic acquisition and development.
On the other hand, for us older signers, SL increases the activity of different brain areas connected to language a visual-spatial recognition, creating new neural connections between areas that would normally be "independent" linguistically speaking.
Why I love Sign Language
Trying to avoid a Sapir-Whorfian point of view on language and its impacts on the speaker's subjectivity, Sign Languages do change the point of view of their users by giving them a different tool to manipulate and interpret their realities. It is not that reality changes, on the contrary, but the way we express subject-object relationships and interactions may vary, as well as we may tend to use signs when we think "out loud". This, honestly, has been a great help in several, different situations.
On the other hand, SL can be used in environments where oral communication is not possible: concerts and other noisy places, situations in which you must be silent like libraries, through long distances, when something is right between the signers (be it a window or a closed glass door), or moments in which you can't speak properly, such as when you're eating, when you have a sore throat or, like in one personal situation, after a surgery that didn't allow me to speak easily.
Last but not least, SLs have been proven to work with extremely shy or introvert people, as well as with others with autism or selective mutism. In situations where the person won't communicate orally, be it voluntarily or not, it has been shown how the use of SL works both therapeutically by allowing them to communicate without stress and, of course, communicatively.
On a humorous note, you can use it during exams, specially when your teacher doesn't know or recognize sign language. Question 15, is it "a", "b" or "c"?. Easy peasy!
But *disclaimer*: I do not support or suggest cheating on exams is right!
In other words: learn a Sign Language, it will boost your intellect and develop your brain, it will help you thinking and seeing things from a different perspective, it will help you communicate and it will make you feel free!
References and further reading: Infants link language and cognition, whether the language is Spoken or a Sign Language. https://neurosciencenews.com/sign-language-cognition-19269/
Does the brain process Sign Language and Spoken Language differently? https://www.brainfacts.org/thinking-sensing-and-behaving/language/2018/does-the-brain-process-sign-language-and-spoken-language-differently-100918
New perspectives on the neurobiology of Sign Languages. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2021.748430/full
Evidence from an emerging sign language reveals that language supports spatial cognition. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0914044107
The moral case for sign language education. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40592-019-00101-0
The benefits of a multilingual child: using ASL after the toddler stage. https://www.deafinconline.org/post/the-benefits-of-a-multilingual-child-using-asl-after-the-toddler-stage
Tomaszewski, P: Sign Language Development in Young Deaf Children. Psychology of Language and Communication, 2001. Vol. 5. No. 1. Institute of the Dead, Warsaw, Poland.
Recommended resources on LSE: Gramática Didáctica de la Lengua de Signos Española (LSE). Fundación CNSE. https://cnlse.es/es/recursos/otros/linguistica/gramatica/gramatica-didactica-de-la-lengua-de-signos-espanola-lse
Lengua de Signos Española para Dummies. Fundación CNSE.
Diccionario DILSE. Diccionario de la Lengua de Signos Española. Fundación CNSE. Fundación ONCE. Ministerio de Educación y Formación Profesional. https://fundacioncnse-dilse.org/
Spread The Sign. International Sign Language Dictionary. European Sign Language Centre. https://www.spreadthesign.com/es.es/search/
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