September is Deaf Awareness Month!
September 11: ASL Accepted as a Foreign Language Credit (in many U.S. states)
ASL is recognized as a foreign language because of a late 20th-century linguistic shift, stemming from William Stokoe’s research in the 1960s that established it as a natural, complex language distinct from English.
Before this, oralism, the belief that deaf people should learn to speak, dominated deaf education, and ASL was banned in many schools.
The recognition of ASL’s linguistic integrity, along with advocacy from organizations like the National Association of the Deaf (NAD), led to its inclusion in curricula and its acceptance as a foreign language in high schools and universities to fulfill language requirements.
Wikipedia about ASL: wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Sign_Language