Originally Posted by
emika
Now about International Sign Language- it's rather rude to see hearing people push that idea so hard as sign languages are not something new, they have rich and storied histories in their countries. I wouldn't give up ASL to learn some sort of ISL to fulfill the fantasies of ignorant hearing people. Why do hearing people think I should be able to communicate with deaf people in any country I go to when the same is not true for spoken languages? Just look at Esperanto. It failed. ISL will not take off too because the deaf people do NOT want or need one. Please stop pushing this idea on us.
Actually, International Sign Language is a Deaf invention, not hearing. What was described earlier is a little bit different from that. I agree with you that I would not give up ASL for either the Deaf invented version, nor for the hearing one being discussed earlier in this thread. The Deaf version was invented to help communication, not to replace any countries original language.