There's a distinctly Philadelphia accent in American Sign Language | Public Radio International - 1 views
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Lara Cowell on 30 Aug 17Deaf people from Philadelphia have a noteworthy, distinctive regional accent in their signg language. When most people talk about a dialect in spoken languages, and in sign languages too, a lot of what they center on are lexical differences: differences in words. In ASL, there are many, many signs that have lexical differences. For example, the (Philadelphia) sign for hospital is exceptionally different from what standard ASL would be, and among other things. To the point where the signs are not able to be deciphered based on what they look like. The historical reason for the differences between Philadelphian sign language and standard ASL: the first school for the deaf was founded by a French teacher, and therefore Philadelphia sign is more akin to French signing than American signing.