For most deaf people in the United States, American Sign Language, or ASL--created by the deaf for themselves--is the natural, most expressive, and most comfortable form of communication. Linguists' studies over the past two decades have shown that ASL is a true and separate language, not modeled on any spoken language, fully capable of communicating complex ideas and information. But ASL "speaks" to the eyes, not the ears: meaning, emphasis and syntax are conveyed by particular hand and arm shapes and movements, facial expressions, and body postures. Names, and some English loanwords, are fingerspelled with the manual alphabet.

Like every language, ASL has artistic as well as practical dimensions. ASL poems often employ single handshapes or patterned movements throughout, just as English poetry often derives its form from devices like meter and rhyme.