American Sign Language Thesaurus Is a companion and expansion of American Sign Language I. It is a study of English Synonyms commonly associated with basic signs of the American Sign Language (ASL). When studying ASL it is important to remember that the language is not a manual form of another language but a distinctive language of its own. ASL has characteristics and distinctive of a linguistic system. Signs express concepts in a manual linguistic form. Compared to English, ASL express itself general in the most simple and common form of words. ASL words express concepts by manual gesture not by sound. (Be careful. It is easy to hear a spoken term in English and express it in the wrong form of ASL.) The expression of most ASL words is in the present tense. To speak in various tenses the speaker states the tense of his conversation then speaks in the present tense. Signs are usually expressed in singular forms. Establish plurality by stating plurality. Using the signs "Many", "Few", or "All" may do that. Specific numbers may establish plurality such as in "Two boy".