A Deaf Frenchman named Laurent Clerc brought the sign language that would become American Sign Language (ASL) to the United States in 1816. He traveled from Paris with an American minister named Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, and together they founded the first permanent school for deaf students in the country. The language Clerc taught was rooted in French Sign Language, which then blended with signs already used by deaf communities in America to form what we now call ASL.
A Chance Meeting That Started It All
The story begins in Hartford, Connecticut, around 1814. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, a young minister and recent Yale graduate, noticed a girl in his neighborhood who couldn’t communicate with the other children. Her name was Alice Cogswell, and she was deaf. Gallaudet tried a simple experiment: he pointed to his hat and wrote H-A-T in the dirt. Alice understood immediately, and Gallaudet became determined to teach her more.
The problem was that no schools for deaf children existed anywhere in the United States at the time. Most hearing Americans assumed deaf people were incapable of rational thought, simply because so few had ever received any formal education. Alice’s father, Mason Cogswell, was a wealthy Hartford physician who saw what Gallaudet had sparked in his daughter. He financed a trip to Europe so Gallaudet could study established methods of deaf education and bring them back.
What Gallaudet Found in Europe
Gallaudet initially tried to learn methods from schools in Britain, but those institutions guarded their techniques as trade secrets. His luck changed in London in 1815, where he attended a public demonstration by educators from the Royal Institution for the Deaf in Paris. The demonstration was led by Abbé Sicard, the school’s director, along with two deaf men: Jean Massieu and Laurent Clerc. The three showed audiences how deaf students could understand complex ideas and express themselves fluently through sign language. English-speaking audiences were stunned.
Clerc was especially impressive. He had entered the Paris school at age twelve, studied under Massieu (himself a deaf graduate of the institution), and risen to become an instructor of the most advanced classes. The school’s entire curriculum was built on French Sign Language, a system with roots in the work of Abbé Charles-Michel de l’Épée, who had founded the Paris institution decades earlier and developed a structured sign language along with a sign language dictionary.
Gallaudet was invited to study at the Paris school, where Clerc became his sign language teacher. After months of training, Gallaudet made Clerc a remarkable offer: come to America and help build a school from scratch. Clerc accepted.
The Voyage That Created ASL
The 52-day Atlantic crossing in 1816 was itself a language classroom. Gallaudet taught Clerc English while Clerc taught Gallaudet sign language. Clerc kept a detailed diary documenting his progress learning English, a record that still survives. By the time they reached American shores, both men were equipped to teach in ways neither could have managed alone.
Once in New England, Clerc and Gallaudet toured cities giving public demonstrations, much like the ones Sicard had conducted in Europe. Audiences were amazed. For many, it was the first time they had ever seen a deaf person communicate with the sophistication and fluency that sign language made possible. The demonstrations helped raise both public awareness and the funds needed to open a school.
America’s First Deaf School Opens
On April 15, 1817, the Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons opened in Hartford. Alice Cogswell, the girl who had inspired the entire mission, was its first registered student. The school, now called the American School for the Deaf, is still in operation today.
Clerc threw himself into the work. He taught sign language to Gallaudet, who served as principal. He taught the students. He also trained hearing men who came to Hartford specifically to study deaf education so they could open schools elsewhere. Over the following years, Clerc and Gallaudet helped establish additional schools for the deaf across the country, spreading the language and educational model far beyond Connecticut.
How French Sign Language Became ASL
The sign language Clerc brought was French Sign Language, not ASL as it exists today. What happened next was a natural linguistic process. Deaf students arriving at Hartford (and later at other schools) brought their own home signs, gestures their families had developed to communicate. On Martha’s Vineyard, a large hereditary deaf community had already developed a rich local sign language. These home signs and regional systems mixed with the French foundation Clerc introduced, and over decades, a distinct American language emerged.
ASL today shares significant vocabulary and grammatical features with French Sign Language, and signers of the two languages can often partially understand each other. But ASL has its own grammar, idioms, and structure that make it a fully independent language, not a dialect of French Sign Language or a signed version of English.
ASL in the United States Today
Estimates of how many people use ASL vary widely because no official census tracks it. Gallaudet University’s research puts the number of primary users (people who sign as their main language) at roughly 250,000 to 500,000 in the United States. When you include people who learned ASL as a second language, the number grows considerably, though exact figures are hard to pin down. Claims that ASL is the third most-used language in the country are common online but not well supported by data.
ASL has gained significant recognition in education. All 23 California State University campuses accept it to fulfill foreign language graduation requirements. States like Washington have passed legislation making ASL count toward both high school graduation and four-year college admission foreign language requirements. Kentucky requires any state college or university offering ASL to accept it as modern language credit. Hundreds of universities across the country now treat ASL the same as Spanish, French, or any other language for degree purposes.
Laurent Clerc, sometimes called the “Apostle of the Deaf in America,” taught at the Hartford school for decades and lived to see deaf education spread across the continent. The language he carried across the Atlantic in 1816 didn’t just survive the journey. It took root, absorbed local influences, and grew into something uniquely American.