Sign language is a language for people who have serious problems communicating with spoken language. So yes, definitely don’t forget about words communicated using sign language.
The signing community disagrees strongly with this take, as sign is an expressive artform in it's own right. Hearing folks can as easily appreciate a talented and expressive signer as a vocalist. And it's possible to express things through sign which are impossible to express with speech.
Heather Dale wrote a song about Gawain and the Green Knight, and produced a video in which a deaf storyteller tells the story while the song plays. (I don't think the story is an exact match to the song, but I assume it's fairly close.)
The storyteller uses some very impressive body language; it's great to see. It made me wonder if this is a particular strength of deaf storytelling, given that the audience has to be watching closely anyway.
I never learned sign. Despite this, ASL is so expressive that I understand about half the words without training. Watching someone sign expressively is like watching dance (and the two are sometimes mixed). I don't need the words, it's beautiful.
Lots of folks feel similarly about opera.
It sounds like you've formed these opinions without ever exposing yourself to the things you have opinions about.
I don't have anything against it. I just think it is hyperbolic to say most people enjoy it on par.
Like I said in my original response, that's ok. It can be a valid art form with less mass appeal. More people like swift than Miles Davis. That doesn't invalidate Miles Davis.
I take it you've never had a conversation on a dance floor, across a street busy with traffic, or without any risk of waking the baby (or your enemies, I guess), or behind somebody's (highly proximate) back.
Sign languages are for humans. Even those of us with sharp hearing can learn to take greater advantage of the bandwidth available to us.
