ASL is a completely different language from English. Comments like
Uhm, why does that need it's own wiki? Couldn't the videos just be added to
en wiki?
And also, can't most deaf people (in english speaking countries)
read/write english? — Phroziac
... the project would likely cope much better as part of the
larger en.wiki community. — Andrew Gray
(these are just a couple of random selections, nothing against either poster
personally) could, I think, easily be taken as opposing the basic Wikipedian
principle of people's right to access to information in their own languages.
Yes, most people whose first and most fluent language is ASL have been
educated largely in English (depending on where and when they were schooled
this may have included deprecating ASL in favor of "Signed English" and
finger-spelling, and may or may not have included acquiring a high degree of
proficiency in lip-reading).
Regardless of the technical means and organization of a signed Wikipedia, I
would encourage people discussing the matter not to use wordings that may
suggest that ASL is not a language in its own right, or that deaf people
have a less fundamental right to acquire knowledge through their own
languages than have hearing people.
Haruo