I completed my final addition to MY ASL DICTIONARY on the last day of the year 2020. I discovered almost too late that I had forgotten to include the sign for Advanced Sign Language. For a dictionary on sign language, this was not acceptable. As I had used cartoons of figures from deaf history before, I chose to use a cartoon of William Stokoe for Advanced Sign Language. Unfortunately, the page for this word was already full, so while my dictionary mentions Stokoe in the introduction to sign language page, there was no extra room to include his bio. Quite a shame as his work as a linguist and professor at Gallaudet University legitimized ASL as a National Language. In 1960, he published Sign Language Structure, which had the first use of the term American Sign Language. In 1965 he co-authored A Dictionary of American Sign Language on Linguistic Principles, the first American Sign Language Dictionary. Perhaps a future edition of MY ASL DICTIONARY will contain this extra information.
I drew a cartoon of a young William Stoke, adding his name to the graduation gown and placing the image of the first American Sign Language dictionary behind him, completing MY ASL DICTIONARY on Thursday, December 31, 2020. Even though a few extra words would be added later, it’s fitting that the final word for the book was Advanced Sign Language with William Stokoe.
