Somewhat offtop, but I wanted to ask: how much universal intelligibility there is in sign languages? I understand that sign languages are, well, languages, and thus not readily inter-intelligible. But so are, perhaps, our native languages, yet here we are speaking English. And not just because this is a somewhat SV forum: english is just internationally popular right now. Of course, most people I meet don't really speak english, and lingua franca will change based on the region (at many places most people will know nothing but local language), but learning english is still way more practical worldwide (outside of USA and UK) than learning estonian, and speaking english I have good chances to be understood in most big cities in Europe and worldwide.
Also, I understand that it's hard to compare, because most people don't speak any sign languages, but is there something similar with sign languages?
Honestly, I feel weird desire to learn some sign language, but there's absolutely zero practical reasons for me to do so, and I wonder if learning, say, ASL, could help me interact with deaf people in my country or somewhere else. Sure, I won't understand them when they speak their local dialect, but is there something common that most deaf people would probably understand?
There is an artificial universal sign language used at deaf conventions. It isn’t particularly popular or well known (to fluency) though.
Most deaf people that know separate sign systems or sign languages will figure out ways to communicate across those language barriers at extreme speed. They are unmatchable charade experts.
I have seen deaf people from different continents have entire conversations in pidgin they bridge together over a few minutes.
ASL is perhaps more universal than English in one way. Most missionaries that established ASL Brought it with them as their primary teaching tool to deaf children.
So from Jamaica to Ghanna, Canada, many places in Africa, there will be many locations that sign a local variant of ASL. Perhaps maintaining 50-60% of the parent sign language.
ASL’s parent sign language is French, it is one of the older sign language and so has maintained less of its French roots, but we still use French twos and threes in our signed numbering system.
There must be granularity and resolution of concepts lost in these ad-hoc systems, if not already in the formal sign systems themselves compared to spoken languages.
