<P> Throughout West Africa, ASL - based sign languages are spoken by educated Deaf adults . These languages, imported by boarding schools, are often considered by associations to be the official sign languages of their countries, and are named accordingly, e.g. Nigerian Sign Language, Ghanaian Sign Language . Such signing systems are found in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Liberia, Mauritania, Mali, Nigeria, and Togo . Due to lack of data, it is still an open question how similar these sign languages are to the variety of ASL used in America . </P> <P> In addition to the aforementioned West African countries, ASL is reported to be used as a first language in Barbados, Bolivia, Cambodia, the Central African Republic, Chad, China (Hong Kong), the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Jamaica, Kenya, Madagascar, the Philippines, Singapore, and Zimbabwe . ASL is also used as a lingua franca throughout the deaf world, widely learned as a second language . </P> <P> Varieties of ASL are found throughout the world . There is little difficulty in comprehension among the varieties of the United States and Canada . </P> <P> Just as there are accents in speech, there are regional accents in sign . People from the South sign slower than people in the North--even people from northern and southern Indiana have different styles . </P>

Is american and canadian sign language the same