In 1955 Stokoe, a linguist, became fascinated with American Sign Language, the language of the deaf, when he went to teach English at Washington D.C.’s Gallaudet University. At the time, deaf students were expected to learn from writing and lip reading.
Long thought to be simple gestures that mimicked spoken English, when Stokoe watched students communicate among themselves by signing he realized ASL was a language unto itself, with its own vocabulary and grammar. In 1960, his book Sign Language Structure was published, and four years later he co-wrote A Dictionary of American Sign Language on Linguistic Principles. These new scholarly studies gave ASL new respect, and ended its banishment in schools for the deaf. Stokoe died April 4 at home in Chevy Chase, Md. He was 80.
Update: I took a year of ASL in college. His 2001 book Language in Hand: Why Sign Came Before Speech * is probably the best place to start if you have interest in the topic.