Is ASL a Foreign Language?

There are some schools now counting American Sign Language as a foreign language. There are also some high schools teaching this around the country. I know this does not meet the requirement for a lot of colleges. I want to know why.

If I went up to some random person and started signing to them I guarantee that they would not know what I was saying. This is why I consider sign language to be a foreign language. It might not come from a different country and is not spoken, but it is still not understood by most Americans. This is not taught in English classes, so it cannot be

American Sign Language also has its own writing system. They call it glossing. For example if I wanted to write the cat name is Tommy it would look like

  _____________________

“CAT NAME fs-TOMMY.” There are other marks that cannot be done on the computer that indicate facial expressions and question type. This is definitely not English. I do not see why people do not classify it as a foreign language if people who speak the native language of the land cannot read it and cannot understand when people “speak” it. To me it should be because I can gloss for people and they would not understand what the sentence means or might think it looks messed up based on what is being said. I can also sign to someone that speaks English and they do not know what I am saying. To me both of these things classify it as a foreign language.

There are some high schools in the United States that offer American Sign Language as an option for a foreign language. There are very few colleges, however, that recognize it as a foreign language. This can create a lot of issues for people who want to take American Sign Language in high school because they will want it to count for their foreign language. If they cannot count it they will not want to take it as much. I think this should be considered as a foreign language for all colleges and that it should be offered in more high schools. If it were more widely accepted in colleges, then high schools might offer it more.