End Time Challenge

[Gregory Matthews]

End Time Challenge:  If the mission of the Church today is to reach every group of people with the message of salvation, how should the Church today reach those who are deaf?  For some in the U.S., the answer has included communicating with the deaf in American Sign Language (ASL).  I have typically understood that to be simply learning how to communicate ln standard English grammar and vocabulary in equivalent sign language symbols.  It has only been in the past month (March) that I have learned that I was totally wrong. The only relationship that ASL has to  English is to learn the 26 signs that are used to spell English words.  Those 26 signs are not considered a part of ASL.  ASL is one of about 300 unique sign languages that are used to communicate with the dear.  ASL has some 40,000+ unique words in its vocabulary which differ from English words.  In English, sentence structure typically follows subject-verb-object word order.  But, in ASL the typical sentence structure places the object at the beginning of the sentence.  ASL uses topicalization in its syntax, English does not.  ASL uses Role-shifting and classifiers, while English does not.  In brief, ASL is essentially a foreign language that differes from the English language.  This failure to understand may be part of the reason we as a church have not done well in reaching the deaf.

 

[Gregory Matthews]

For references to the above, see:

https://beelinguapp.com/blog/where-it-comes-from-and-how-to-master-the-basics

https://takelessons.com/live/american-sign-language/asl-grammar-rules

https://www.ilovelanguages.com/how-many-words-are-in-american-sign-language/

[Dr. Shane]

My girlfriend in college was an ASL translator.  She had a young daughter and they would always sign when I was at their apartment.  The church I used to attend had a deaf ministry and its leader would translate the services.  Eventually he moved away and that ministry ended.  To make it worse, ASL is only used in the US and Canada.  So, other countries have their own sign languages.