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Salike took Elementary American Sign Language I in fall 2023, then followed up with the second level in spring 2024. This year, with an undergraduate research fellowship<\/a> from the UConn Humanities Institute<\/a>, she\u2019s independently discovering \u201cThe Evolution of African American English (AAE) and Black American Sign Language (BASL) in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n It was in one of those early ASL classes that Salike says she learned there was even such a thing as BASL and that its origin parallels the evolution of AAE, each becoming distinct dialects with roots in ASL and Standard American English (SAE), respectively.<\/p>\n That got her thinking: Does racism and audism impact the way language evolves and the way people freely speak or sign? Does racism exist in the Deaf community? Does being deaf and Black influence how people are treated in a hearing-centric world? Do AAE and BASL share historical similarities in the way they became their own languages?<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important to unpack how systemic structures influence the way people live,\u201d she says, \u201cand having more literature out there on this could start to break down the racism and audism that still exists.\u201d<\/p>\n When speakers of SAE hear someone conversing in AAE, or vice versa, Salike says, they take notice of the grammar differences. AAE uses certain constructions including double negatives, for example.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople have this idea that African American English is not a proper way to speak English because they are using ideas of what Standard American English should sound like. But each is different unto its own,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n The same is true for the differences between BASL and ASL, she continues: \u201cThere\u2019s a common misconception that there is one universal sign language, but there\u2019s the same diversity in signing as there are number of groups in the larger Deaf community. For instance, if someone from the East Coast were to sign with someone from the West Coast, just like with oral communication, there would be detectable accents.\u201d<\/p>\n Salike says that for her one of the trickiest parts of learning sign language comes with its reliance on facial expressions to convey words, phrases, and sentiments, in addition to the use of hand gestures.<\/p>\n That\u2019s only amplified in BASL, which is even heavier on facial expressions and utilizes two-handed gestures more frequently.<\/p>\n While she says she can\u2019t put a timestamp on precisely when BASL developed, it came about during segregation when white students were educated separately from Black students, a separation that allowed BASL to flourish.<\/p>\n \u201cFor a long time, manual languages were banned in white schools. You weren\u2019t allowed to teach deaf children how to sign. They would need to learn to speak or use oral language as well,\u201d Salike explains. \u201cBut the rules were different in Black schools where Black children had a space to learn sign language and practice signing because their education wasn\u2019t given the same attention as white students.\u201d<\/p>\n In the same way that SAE and AAE are mutually intelligible, so is ASL and BASL, she adds, noting that nonetheless there would be some fits and starts in communication, much like there are when two people with distinct regional dialects communicate (for example, the difference between the use of the word \u201csoda\u201d in the Northeast and \u201cpop\u201d in the Midwest).<\/p>\n Sign language is not a word-for-word translation, just as converting English to Spanish isn\u2019t and often depends on context. That\u2019s why sign language interpreters are not called translators, Salike says. Their job is to convey the essence of what the person is trying to say.<\/p>\n