The most familiar sign language systems today are those developed for the deaf and hearing-impaired. However, non-verbal communication through bodily movements is much older than these relatively recent systems. The need for secrecy, vows of silence,...

Sign language is a type of visual communication with the hands, body, and facial expressions used by deaf and hard-of-hearing people. American Sign Language (ASL) is the primary means of communication by a very large portion of the deaf population in...

A gestural LANGUAGE used by the deaf and hearing-impaired. Many sign languages exist, having developed separately from spontaneous gestural systems of deaf people in different lands, and sign languages are, unless related, not mutually intelligible....

A form of language, using signs, for the purpose of communication with, and between, deaf...

A sign language (also signed language) is a language which uses manual communication, body language and lip patterns instead of sound to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and...

Washoe, a female chimpanzee said to be the first non-human to acquire human language, has died of natural causes at the research institute where she was kept.Washoe, who first learned a bit of American Sign Language in a research project in Nevada, had been living...

Sign language interpreters in Thailand have run afoul of some ruling party supporters by holding their noses to refer to the new prime minister.Samak Sundaravej, chosen in parliament Monday as the first elected prime minister since a Sept. 2006 coup, has been nicknamed "Mr. Rose...

A brawl involving five men apparently began over a misunderstanding when a man who is deaf and mute was communicating through sign language and another man took offense, thinking that the hand gestures were disrespectful. Police say what resulted was a brawl in which a...

Five years ago the staff at Ken Gan's auto repair shop told him they needed to find a better way of communicating with customers who were deaf."I said, let me go shopping — I'll buy you whatever's out there," said Gan, of Rochester, N.Y., which...