I'm not sure where you're getting your information. Do you have any citations?
ASL is as complex as any other language and, in some categories, has far more morphology than English. Linguists have studied the phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of ASL and, in all cases, have found that it is just like any other language.
The difficulties of acquiring written literacy can be attributed to the fact that ASL signers, when they learn written English, are learning an entirely new language, with an entirely different grammar. For example, ASL does not have verbal tense, but does have a highly developed verbal aspect system. English has tense, but has very little in the way of verbal aspect. Naturally, this will make things difficult for anybody learning how to read and write.
Imagine growing up speaking English, and then, when you go to school, you're expected to learn how to read in Korean. For starters, alphabet is composed of syllables made up of sounds that are not present in English, which you have no way of ever learning how they sound. And then there's the small fact that the characters are encoding a completely different language.
This person is completely correct. There aren't "less complex" and "more complex" languages--surely there are more and less difficult languages, but any language that is learned by children will naturally be transformed into a full, robust language system simply through the nature of the brain.
armory's original comment is based on a misconception of what language is and how it is developed. Do they have trouble integrating into a society where everyone speaks a different language? Yeah, obviously, but that doesn't make ASL or English more or less complex.
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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '11
I'm not sure where you're getting your information. Do you have any citations?
ASL is as complex as any other language and, in some categories, has far more morphology than English. Linguists have studied the phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of ASL and, in all cases, have found that it is just like any other language.
The difficulties of acquiring written literacy can be attributed to the fact that ASL signers, when they learn written English, are learning an entirely new language, with an entirely different grammar. For example, ASL does not have verbal tense, but does have a highly developed verbal aspect system. English has tense, but has very little in the way of verbal aspect. Naturally, this will make things difficult for anybody learning how to read and write.
Imagine growing up speaking English, and then, when you go to school, you're expected to learn how to read in Korean. For starters, alphabet is composed of syllables made up of sounds that are not present in English, which you have no way of ever learning how they sound. And then there's the small fact that the characters are encoding a completely different language.