Why everybody should learn sign language

Juan Pablo Bonet, Reducción de las letras y arte para enseñar a hablar a los mudos (‘Reduction of letters and art for teaching mute people to speak’) (Madrid, 1620).

I'm sure there's a post or a discussion on this subject somewhere, but I've never seen one so I'm writing it. I've long thought that basic sign language should be part of every country's curriculum, not just for the hard of hearing but for everybody. Those that use the language every day will of course be fluent in the language and will know that much more than everybody else, but even those with perfect hearing should know at least a few hundred signs, and here's why.

First reason: people insist on talking with their hands anyway, so there obviously is a natural inclination to use your hands while talking. Maddox has a video showing just how extensive this is:



Note that half the time the hand motions don't even make sense if you have the volume off. A slight shaking of both hands at 0:17 doesn't give the impression of "that's what they do in Hollywood", as the speaker was saying. He clearly wanted to do something with his hands there though, so he ended up with some vague dual hand motion. The video is full of these examples.

Second reason: basic sign language is extremely useful. It can be used for:

• Communication between cars. When you cut somebody off by mistake, what's the correct signal to make? A slash of the hand plus a bow of the head? Or was that a thank you? What if you're driving with a friend in the next car and you want to tell him to take the next right, not the next left as you mistakenly said? What if another car is really close to you in a parking lot, is a bad driver and doesn't know how to get out of the way and you want to tell him or her to first go forward, then turn the wheel? A lot of misunderstandings could be cleared up with some basic sign language.
• Communication across large distances. Everybody has seen the following situation: you're at a crosswalk waiting to cross the street and you (or another person) see someone you know. You see them, they see you. It's unmistakable, and now it's very awkward. Sometimes when this happens the two will try to carry out a conversation across the street while waiting for the walk sign to appear. HOW'S IT GOING? GOOD! HOW'S YOUR WIFE? MINE'S GOOD TOO! Meanwhile everybody next to you is cringing. Either that or you pretend to ignore each other for a while, then when the light changes and you both cross, there's a bit of awkwardness in the middle as you pass. Do you just wave and say hi? Should you stop for a bit to try to get in a bit of conversation before the light changes? Or maybe your friend isn't that busy and he's thinking that he'll change direction and walk with you for a bit? All of this can be cleared up through some basic sign language.
• Communication in a ton of other situations where it wouldn't be possible before. Between windows, in meetings when one person is talking but you want to quietly ask another person a small question without being disruptive, to the security camera when you're trapped in an elevator and you want to let people know that you're going to lie down because you're exhausted and not because you're running out of air and dying, while diving or snorkeling, while on an awkward first date when you've told the person you're having dinner with the name of your company whereupon you put a morsel of food in your mouth and she asks you for the name again because she couldn't hear but now your mouth is full, etc. etc.
• Communication between languages to a certain extent. Each version of sign language is different, but they still have a lot in common. The French Wikipedia has the following sentence on Spanish (that is, in Spain) sign language for example: "Son origine est inconnue, mais on considère qu'elle a des influences de la langue des signes américaine, la française et la mexicaine."(Its origin is unknown, but it is considered that it has influences from American sign language, French and Mexican sign language)
• Communication between humans and primates.
• And of course, communication between the hard of hearing and others.

So how many signs should each person know? I don't know the exact number but probably not too many. I would think the following would be sufficient:

• letters from a to z,
• numbers,
• basic phrases like hello, I'm sorry, who/what/when/where/why, etc.
• basic words, verbs and directions like go, forward, back, again, bring, hot, cold, etc.

Any other words that most people don't know can be spelled out, and I suspect that if an entire country were taught the first 200 or so words that the vocabulary would eventually increase as people began to find ways to use it in daily life.

Let's also not forget that sign language first came about in monasteries for priests that had taken a vow of silence:



So sign language wasn't even a language for the hard of hearing in the first place. I see no reason why countries shouldn't implement a curriculum of limited sign language for its students over a year or two in order to benefit communication as a whole. I'm sure just about everybody has a story or two about a time when knowing a few signs would have saved them a whole lot of trouble.