Talk:American Sign Language

Linquist William Stokoe
I don't believe William (bill) Stokoe was a Linquist. He certainly was not hired as Linquist when he started his work at Gallaudet. He was hired as an English teacher. So when he first saw Sign Language it wasn't through the lens of a linguist it was as an English teacher. He studied with two Linquist while Gallaudet which was part of his interest in the language. I don't believe he had a degree in linguistics therefor I don't think he could be identified as Linquist William Stokoe.

Regional Variations
How come the Regional Variations doesn't seem to have as many citations. The information seems valid, but there's only 1 citation per section with a lot of information included? -Jdenny17 (talk) 19:06, 4 September 2022 (UTC)


 * @Jdenny17 Seconded, but I'd like to add that the claim that "research often shows" that faster signing is due to faster paced lifestyle in urban areas is based on a mention of an interview with a single Deaf person and smells like completely invalid informations to me. I think it'd be an extremely significant result if it was proven. Trerri (talk) 21:01, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Map legibility
The map in the infobox is difficult to interpret especially before enlarging as the colors are pretty similar. I'm not super worried about color being the only distinction here, because the info is provided in the text of the main article under geographic distribution, but I do think that more contrast might be helpful? I don't know anything about infobox editing and it looks like the map is from Commons... hoping someone with more experience in one/both of those areas might have some thoughts. SomeoneDreaming (talk) 02:05, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I've replaced the map with a version that is both more color-contrastive and an SVG. Noting here that the "geographic distribution" section and the map differ with respect to several countries (Cambodia, for instance), but I don't have immediate access to Glottolog and can't verify one way or another. Right now the SVG map is based solely on the original, but if RS say something different, it should be edited. AviationFreak💬 22:36, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * That map is much easier to read, thank you for your hard work! SomeoneDreaming (talk) 13:13, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
 * That map is much easier to read, thank you for your hard work! SomeoneDreaming (talk) 13:13, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

"Phonemes"/"Cheremes"
This article currently uses the term "phoneme," with a footnote pointing to Bahan 1996. The explanation there just presents "chereme" as a now-defunct term used by Stokoe, but it's still in use by researchers of signed languages and ASL. The Valli work that we cite a lot in the article, for instance, uses "chereme" - see here. A Google Scholar search yields plenty of papers using "chereme" (a few recent ones: ). From a more philosophical standpoint, "phonemes" are almost always considered in terms of sounds: our article describes them as such in the lede. That same article has a section towards the end that claims "chereme" is no longer used as a term, but as demonstrated above, that just isn't true. I'm not flatly opposed to using "phoneme" in the article, but I do think "chereme" would be a better fit. If other editors have thoughts, I'd love to hear them. AviationFreak💬 21:30, 15 July 2024 (UTC)