American Sign Language (ASL) History

American Sign Language is by far, the youngest organized and recognized language that we have on earth today.
That is just one of the unique aspect of this language.
The history of this language dates back to the early 18th century in France when a paris based priest Charles-Michel de l'Épée opened his heart, mind and fortune towards finding a way to bring his neighbour's twin deaf daughters into mainstream society. What made him unique from others in the field was his unbiased view of deafness as a unique disability rather than something that is the effect of a curse, as had been considered by people of those days. Until that time, deaf individuals were harshly trained to learn lip reading and the use of signs were prohibited in most schools. The emphasis of those times were to force the deaf individual to adjust with the mainstream society at any cost. Charles-Michel de l'Épée was an exception and his exceptional outlook towards deafness produced exceptional results also.
By 1750, his school soon became famous all over france and within a very short time became the "place to go" for any parent who wished their deaf child a humane treatment when it comes to education.

After his death, one of his close aide Abbe Sicard took over the management of the school.

He was equally or according to historians, more focussed than his predecessor who started the school.
The school turned famous to renowned during his time by the intellectual works of two of his two students who were in all aspects as competent as their hearing counterparts.
One of his deaf students Laurent Clerc wrote articles about complex subjects like philosophy and became respected in the community.
He later became a teacher in the school that trained him and in 1791 took over the leadership of the school.
Now, let's leave them in France and go to America where Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, who just completed a two year course in theology and was about to join church as a minister was requested by his neighbour to train his deaf daughter. With the help of her father and others from the community, he travelled to London where almost all of the schools that trained deaf were reluctant to disclose their methodology.

As he was going to leave London, he happened to meet Abbe Sicard who was touring London to showcase his methodology.

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet met Abbe Sicard and that became a turning point in the history of American Sign Language.
Abbe Sicard was more than happy to teach Gallaudet and invited him to France.
In France, Gallaudet managed to convince Abbe Sicard to bring his brightest student Laurent Clerc to America. The American school for the deaf was established at Hartford in 1817 which was later became the now famous Gallaudet University.