12 ms·

Two quick misconceptions to call out for those less familiar with signed languages: 1. ASL is not just English with each word replaced with a sign. It's an inc

by mabbo 6y ago

Two quick misconceptions to call out for those less familiar with signed languages: 1. ASL is not just English with each word replaced with a sign. It's an incredibly complex language with different grammatical rules, some of which don't have English equivalents. 2. It's incredibly flexible. Many core grammar components will remain consistent, but often if you drive to another city, many words/signs will be different. But signers adapt to these changes quickly. Those two things make this article all the more interesting, because it's a great example of how the flexibility and unique properties of ASL allows for adaptation in circumstances like these strange times. Source: three years, almost a minor, in ASL in University. I'm no expert, but I truly enjoy the language.

thepete2 6y ago
This is kind of unrelated, but I wonder if a small amount (say 100 signs or so) of sign language (ASL or local equivalent) wouldn't be useful for hearing people in their day-to-day lives. I'm very interested in sign-language, but language being what it is you can't do it alone ...
- mabbo 6y ago
  They are handy! Especially if one person is on a call and can't talk, or you're trying to be quiet. "I love you", "Food?", "Tea?" (we're tea drinkers) are commonly used in my home.
  - thepete2 6y ago
    That's exactly what I mean. Great use haha
- wittjeff 6y ago
  Check out Cued Speech (one-handed phonetic signing). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn4e9V3oigs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn4e9V3oigs It's a different modality of the local spoken language, not a separate language like ASL. You can learn it in a weekend. IMO it should be taught to everyone in the 2nd grade to help with phonological awareness, which is helpful for visual literacy. But it'd also be useful in a lot of noisy situations throughout life.
  - rblatz 6y ago
    From my recollection cued speech and signed English both are controversial in the Deaf community. They are seen as clunky and forced on them by the hearing community. I think the biggest issue is that most languages including ASL have about the same informational density for a given unit of time. Whereas Cued Speech and Signed English have significantly lower informational density.
    - SamBam 6y ago
      Isn't the purpose of cued speech not to replace ASL/other sign languages, but to add some support for a person who does not know ASL to speak clearly to a deaf person? If you're a teacher or a police officer or someone who needs to talk to all people, including deaf people, wouldn't learning the eight cues be a useful tool, even if you're not going to fully-learn ASL?
      - bluGill 6y ago
        Maybe, but I don't see the point. Speaking with your hands is weird no matter what you are doing. Learning ASL signs instead of something else is that much harder, and ASL is a lot richer than either. Of course I can't claim any ability in ASL. When taking the baby sign language classes my teacher was very insistent that to the baby what sign you use doesn't matter, but we should use ASL signs because learning any other sign isn't any easier, and this way we have a few dozen signs that are actually useful after the baby grows up. Which is the point: if you learn some signs of ASL you can communicate better than pointing. When you learn something else your are just pointing and hoping you are understood.
      - jacobr1 6y ago
        If the signs are just small set of cues for the most common phrases a police officer needs to convey, then why not just teach this as an ASL subset?
        SamBam 6y ago
        Did you watch the video on Cued Speech? It's not a set of signs for common phrases at all. It's simply a small set of gestures that accompany some of the hard-to-lip-read sounds, like /m/ /p/ /b/. So if you're saying "mat" "bat" or "pat" those all look the same to a lip-reader. With the cues, you have a small gesture that is distinct for /m/ /p/ /b/. They combine together to make a total of about a dozen gestures that can be used to differentiate between any hard-to-understand English word. So it's not a phrase book. It just allows you to say anything you want to say and be understood a little more clearly by a lip-reader.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  >> useful for hearing people in their day-to-day lives. You doubtless already use many signs. They may not be ASL but we do use a variety of hand gestures to convey very specific meanings.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    I'm not sure on the "very specific" part. We use some general, non-specific signs ("OK", "good" [thumbs up, depending on your cultural background and situation]). We, the hearing community in my country (UK), use gestures too of course. Could you give a few examples of signs hearing people use where you are that you consider "very specific"?
    - sandworm101 6y ago
      >>> where you are that you consider "very specific"? Flipping the bird. Pointing at things. Hand signals when driving (more a thing for motorcyclists). Then there are plenty of job-specific things. Crane operators have their own system of very specific hand gestures for directing crane operations. The military has a host of standardized gestures. DJs/audio techs/musicians have a set for talking in loud environments. https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/safety_haz/materials_handling/signals.html https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/safety_haz/materials_handlin... https://armynavyoutdoors.com/blog/learn-military-hand-signals/ https://armynavyoutdoors.com/blog/learn-military-hand-signal... The little girl in this vid managed to convey a very specific meaning to a passing ship using only a gesture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETrWMvicKps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETrWMvicKps
      - myself248 6y ago
        > The little girl in this vid managed to convey a very specific meaning to a passing ship using only a gesture. And it's SO specific that just reading that sentence, I knew exactly which meaning you meant, and which gesture. (Clicking the link to confirm was totally worth it though.) I've been on both ends of that gesture and it's always a hoot. > DJs/audio techs/musicians have a set for talking in loud environments. Whoah, really? I've improvised plenty, but I'm super curious if there's a standard set. You can always figure out "make louder", "make quieter", point at objects, mimic certain instruments. But it'd be nice to have more vocabulary beyond that.
- dnndev 6y ago
  Super powers Sign Language -> communicate with someone in a noisy room (across the room even) Braille -> A friend of mine learned braille so he could "read" books after his parents said lights out. What a rebel.
  - medstrom 6y ago
    A risky habit: signing with other deaf drivers on the motorway. I've done it...
    - harrierpigeon 6y ago
      I've seen people doing that on the highway, too! It appears to generally be one gesture, and occasionally the horn is used for greater emphasis.
  - gugagore 6y ago
    To the extent that these are related, it's because of disability. Braille is just a writing system. Signed languages are generally not.
  - jfk13 6y ago
    Isn't that what flashlights are for?
    - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
      Way easier to hide. If you were brave enough, you could literally read braille under the covers with your eyes closed while your parent had their head stuck through the door to check on you.
  - myself248 6y ago
    Yes, super powers! I went to a high school where the drama department did at least one play a year in ASL. Brought in instructors from the local deaf community, and all the drama kids learned it. This was also business genius, because it basically guaranteed ticket sales. A huge number of deaf people in the area would show up for every such play, year after year. Even parents with kids at the school generally stop coming to plays after their kids graduate, but this audience was loyal on the scale of decades. It also meant that a significant chunk of the student body was now able to communicate in/across a noisy room. During assemblies and stuff, you'd see a dozen conversations in progress, not making a sound. Or, communicate near-silently. Clothes rustle and certain signs involve patting, but neither of those sticks out the way voices do. Coordinating a prank behind the teacher's back....
- swsieber 6y ago
  You know what signing is amazing for? Teaching babies to communicate before they have proper vocal control (preverbal is the term I think). We're talking useful communication at under a year. Something like 9-12 months.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    Somewhat. Babies do tend to learn a few signs, and it is useful when they can indicate what they need. However as soon as they learn to talk they universally forget everything. I know people fluent in sign (a large part of their job is working with the deaf), and when they sign to babies the babies are like "you idiot: I just heard you talking to someone else so don't insult my intelligence by not talking to me" The babies can't say something so complex, but you can tell from their reaction that is about what they are thinking. Which is too bad, sign language would be useful in later life. Unless there is a deaf person in the babies life though they will refuse to have anything to do with it once they can speak.
    - Jtsummers 6y ago
      > I know people fluent in sign (a large part of their job is working with the deaf), and when they sign to babies the babies are like "you idiot: I just heard you talking to someone else so don't insult my intelligence by not talking to me" The way my friends have done this is to speak and sign, not just sign. I don't think any of them would've thought it was appropriate to only sign to a hearing child. The purpose was to teach them both the verbal language and a way to communicate back while they were still too young to verbalize (or, in one critical case, unable to speak due to a birth defect but were perfectly capable of hearing).
    - smithza 6y ago
      Babies do tend to learn a few signs...However as soon as they learn to talk they universally forget everything. This was our experience with our young child. It helped to be able to say "more" and sometimes "please" and eventually "all done" but eventually spoken words replaced this communication form. My wife and I have two semesters worth of education under Deaf teachers but have no plans of pressing further on this as a second language for our son.
- bluGill 6y ago
  It can be useful to have some signs, but don't confuse a few signs with a language. One like going to a foreign country and knowing how to ask where the bathroom is, and understanding because more their pointing than their words vs going to the country and getting into a discussion of something weird with a stranger that you just happen to meet. Sign language is a real language you can learn the language. Or you can learn a few signs: there is a place for both, but know which place you are in and don't pretend more.
  - nsxwolf 6y ago
    Why do I always sense anger seething below the surface of any conversation about sign language?
    - medstrom 6y ago
      I think this occurs more in some countries than others, with low sign language awareness. Maybe the US especially due to monolinguality. It seems people love to assume things about other languages that are false and can be insulting. Like when you say an English sentence to a Mexican who doesn't understand it, and you respond by saying the same thing again but louder and slower. It looks like you think they're dense. Another example, the notion that monkeys can "learn sign language". They can learn to use some signs, like a newborn can learn some words, but how would you feel as a French speaker if someone said "look, the monkey speaks French!" just because they taught the monkey some French words? It implies not that the monkey is smart, but that French is so simplistic that even monkeys can understand it.
      - leesalminen 6y ago
        > Like when you say an English sentence to a Mexican who doesn't understand it, and you respond by saying the same thing again but louder and slower. It looks like you think they're dense. My wife is learning Spanish right now because we are moving to Costa Rica. Her most used phrase is “de espacio, por favor” which means “slowly, please”. She’s able to understand much more of the language when folks slow down and annunciate clearly. When I lived in Chile as a teen, I also asked people to do the same thing frequently until I became proficient. I still ask sometimes in other Spanish-speaking countries because their accent or dialect differs from what my ears are most used to. Speaking slowly and clearly to anyone learning a language is incredibly useful and is not insulting in any way.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Absolutely, my wife and I did basic BSL as a night class. Not only is it fascinating to get to know more of deaf culture but it's also really useful. You can learn from YouTube, a sign dictionary (online ones have video) ... but yes, conversation is probably the best way. A night class or MOOC?
- ViViDboarder 6y ago
  I’m heading but learned ASL at work. Ever since, I’ve tried to get my wife to learn because I’m always noticing times when it would be handy (pun not intended). Noisy places, when I’m brushing my teeth, when I want to be more discrete in public, communicating across a room without yelling.
  - smithza 6y ago
    when I want to be more discrete in public .. I think there is an unkindness here, though I do not think your intentions are unkind. I had very close Brazilian-internationals while a freshman in college who very deliberately chose not to speak their native tongue around Americans due to them thinking it unkind. My wife and I frequently do use some simple signs across the room, like "ready to go" (we are both hearing but have two semesters of ASL education).
    - mcguire 6y ago
      In general, using a language those around you don't speak can be rude, but I was imagining more along the lines of "Come rescue me from this conspiracy theorist." Which would have been handy at one point for me.
      - triceratops 6y ago
        > using a language those around you don't speak can be rude, Like generally in public? Or when you're in a social group with others? For the first scenario, I'd almost always speak a second language if I could, for privacy reasons. And also because it's less distracting to others IMO - people tune out unfamiliar languages as noise but not conversations they can understand. But yeah it's rude in the second scenario.
        mcguire 6y ago
        The downside in public is that the people who notice you're speaking another language will assume that you're talking about them and don't want to be overheard by the victim. It is less of a big deal than when you're in a social group, where someone could feel that you are deliberately excluding them.
- cauliflower2718 6y ago
  I was at a (seated) concert once, and the large family next to me would sign to each other to communicate without making noise. Signing has some nice advantages over whispering: you can sign to an entire group at once, but you can only whisper to one person at a time.
- Kluny 6y ago
  It would be awfully useful if both sandwich-eaters and sandwich-makers could learn the signs for, for example, spinach, chipotle, mustard, mayo, wrap, ciabatta, red onion, and so on. At my favorite sandwich counter, a full year into the pandemic, people are still communicating with the staff by yelling at them from 3 feet away from a plexiglass barrier, while everyone is wearing masks and everyone else in the store is yelling as well. Seriously, they haven't even tried to come up with a better system. Like.... pictures on the glass that you can point to? A form with checkboxes that you can hand over? Nope, we're going stick with yelling our lungs out.
gnuvince 6y ago
I didn't know much of anything about ASL, but seeing David Cowan at some press conferences in Georgia made me a bit curious. There's a nice video of him on Youtube[1] where he explains that deaf people's native language is ASL, and not English. That was absolutely flabbergasting to me, because I had always imagine, like you said, that it was just "do this gesture to mean this word and this gesture for this other word". [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd5JGN1jno8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd5JGN1jno8
- bluGill 6y ago
  It is more complex than that. ASL comes from french sign language, and so was always different from British sign language, and I suspect the grammar roots make sense in french. However since then things have diverged to the point that you can't really say there is anything in common with french sign language. Sign language only has a few (thousands) of signs. For the rest the signer finger spells the word they need, if they will use that word again they make up a new sign (often the first letter in a specific position). If a word is commonly used it will eventually enter the language in that city, and may or may not spread to other parts of the country/world. Obviously the finger spelling is the word in the spoken language not sign language. Warning, don't make up words in sign language until you are somewhat an expert. I know of a novice who needed to talk about a person named Ryan, so they gave Ryan a sign - not realizing that sign was already used for retard.
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    > I know of a novice who needed to talk about a person named Ryan, so they gave Ryan a sign - not realizing that sign was already used for retard. Plausible deniability here.
  - codyogden 6y ago
    > Sign language only has a few (thousands) of signs. For the rest the signer finger spells the word they need, if they will use that word again they make up a new sign (often the first letter in a specific position). I'm not sure where this information comes from, but doesn't quite seem correct. A sign is much more involved than simple vocabulary, and qualified signs exist outside the concept of a one-to-one, sign-to-word relationship. There are five parameters to any sign: handshape, location, movement, palm orientation, and non-manual communication (e.g. grammar, tone, and emotion). These parameters are all in use for every signed vocab word you can think of, but they're also used in idioms, whole phrases, classifiers, depictions, and even lexicalized English words that have incorporated fingerspelling elements with other parameters to create complete, separate, non-vocabulary signs of their own (e.g. KILLED, PIZZA, BUZZ, COMMON).
gedy 6y ago
Thanks for your explanation, however it left me with additional question as to its value when politicians/government use a sign language interpreter in speeches. If it's so nuanced and regional, wouldn't reading English text translation be better/clearer?
- bluGill 6y ago
  Don't assume all deaf people are good readers. Text is enough different from ASL that learning to read is like learning a foreign language. Some learn to read well, but some do not. If you want the later to understand you, then text is the wrong answer.
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
Here's another apparent misconception: sign language === ASL. There are many sign languages and many more dialects.
- jbergstroem 6y ago
  Swedish sign language used to be my native language due to having a deaf sister. After relocating to another part of the world and discussing languages, it surprised me how many times I had (have) to explain how "sign language" is not a language. That said; it is amazing how many sign languages can come to similar conclusions due to "always trying to find the simplest way of explaining yourself".
  - interestica 6y ago
    > That said; it is amazing how many sign languages can come to similar conclusions due to "always trying to find the simplest way of explaining yourself". This is fascinating. Do you have an examples that stick out?
    - rblatz 6y ago
      So from my memory of ASL in college there was less worry about being rude or not offending. So if you were asked who someone was, you would start with their most identifiable feature. So if they are the only black guy in the room, or the most over weight you’d sign the black guy or the fat guy. Whereas in English it’s basically a joke now that we’d use just about any other descriptor besides those.
      - willcipriano 6y ago
        Does the language have the sort of precision required to say something like "rotund gentleman" instead? If not I can't really blame someone from saying something in the most polite way a language practically allows.
        6y ago
jeffwass 6y ago
I live in the UK and we have BSL (British Sign Language). It’s absolutely bonkers that two fairly different sign languages exist for the same base spoken language. That said, BSL uses a lot of facial cues, not just hands and arms, to allow for a range expression. Eg puffing out your cheeks to accentuate certain words.
- michaelmior 6y ago
  The use of facial expressions is also incredibly important in ASL.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mabbo 6y ago
  > It’s absolutely bonkers that two fairly different sign languages exist for the same base spoken language Historically speaking, it's because of British snobbery, allegedly. This is how my ASL professor told us it at least. American Thomas Gallaudet went to the British school for the Deaf hoping to learn BSL, etc. But it was not long after the American Revolution and the British weren't very friendly and wouldn't help him. So he went to France and the French taught him (Old) French Sign Language. FSL became the basis of ASL, along with a number of local influences from Martha's Vineyard sign language (a small locally developed signed language). Even then, a friend of mine from university who is very hard of hearing and mostly signs told me that on a trip to Britain he met some British Deaf people at a bar and by the end of the night was mostly fluent. There's enough overlap and enough shared experience between Deaf people that one can learn very quickly. > That said, BSL uses a lot of facial cues, not just hands and arms, to allow for a range expression. Eg puffing out your cheeks to accentuate certain words. This is 100% common to all Signed languages. Facial cues are huge in ASL. Before class, not joking, I would practice in the mirror to warm myself up. My first ASL prof described it by saying that in English, you could read off each word like a robot, with no inflection or tone- and that would be the same as signing with just your hands.
  - _nalply 6y ago
    Thomas Gallaudet was accompanied by a French Deaf person, Laurent Clerc, who later died in Washington DC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurent_Clerc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurent_Clerc
tyingq 6y ago
I'd add in a third bullet noting that sign languages generally favor omitting unnecessary grammar, structure, etc. Like "I love you" as [love sign] -> [point at person you love]. Or for example that "very" might exist in a signed language, but isn't often used. Just substituted with a more physically animated/vigorous version of the adjective, or added facial expression.
- GordonS 6y ago
  Some go even further - my daughter uses Makaton, which is a sign (and symbol) language designed for people that have difficulty communicating (for different reasons, including cognitive impairment and neurological problems). In general the idea is to only use as many signs as you need, although of course you can amend depending on who is communicating. As a point of note, Makaton is used at least a little at a lot of primary schools in Scotland (I would guess across the rest of the UK too), as a "supplementary language" for all kids. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makaton https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makaton
- _nalply 6y ago
  The thing of omitting grammar: That's simply not true, I am sorry. Signed languages have a complex visual grammar. Words are inflected in many ways. I am a somewhat native speaker of the local signed language, and I sometimes discover that I uttered something I couldn't translate into German (the local oral language) without losing some meaning. This usually concerns dynamics, location and emotion. One example, I explained my son how to use the chairlift and how the chairlift will take off. Linguists have discovered that this is not pantomime. I forgot how they named the complicated movements but I remember it is something like a cluster of micro utterances. Your example of «I love you» is an example of inflection. You can vary this sign, to indicate a special dynamic, for example «for a long time», «slowly increasing in intensity», «and you, too, sincerely and deeply», and many others.
  - tyingq 6y ago
    Perhaps there's a better way to characterize it? I'm talking about stuff like this for ASL: You look surprised => You look surprise They came here recently => Recent they come
k_sze 6y ago
Here’s another thing that surprised me until I experienced it first-hand: one-handed variant of sign language. I rarely bump into deaf/mute people in Hong Kong. I once saw a guy holding his phone with one hand and doing sign language with the other because he was video chatting over the phone! Of course, logically we don’t need the invention of mobile phone video chat to warrant the invention of one-handed sign language. You can just imagine some deaf/mute people holding groceries in one hand and still needing to talk. One shouldn’t have to expect them to drop the groceries on the floor in order to talk. Nevertheless, it never occurred to me until I saw it.

by mabbo 6y ago

thepete2 6y ago

This is kind of unrelated, but I wonder if a small amount (say 100 signs or so) of sign language (ASL or local equivalent) wouldn't be useful for hearing people in their day-to-day lives. I'm very interested in sign-language, but language being what it is you can't do it alone ...

mabbo 6y ago
They are handy! Especially if one person is on a call and can't talk, or you're trying to be quiet. "I love you", "Food?", "Tea?" (we're tea drinkers) are commonly used in my home.
- thepete2 6y ago
  That's exactly what I mean. Great use haha
wittjeff 6y ago
Check out Cued Speech (one-handed phonetic signing). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn4e9V3oigs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn4e9V3oigs It's a different modality of the local spoken language, not a separate language like ASL. You can learn it in a weekend. IMO it should be taught to everyone in the 2nd grade to help with phonological awareness, which is helpful for visual literacy. But it'd also be useful in a lot of noisy situations throughout life.
- rblatz 6y ago
  From my recollection cued speech and signed English both are controversial in the Deaf community. They are seen as clunky and forced on them by the hearing community. I think the biggest issue is that most languages including ASL have about the same informational density for a given unit of time. Whereas Cued Speech and Signed English have significantly lower informational density.
  - SamBam 6y ago
    Isn't the purpose of cued speech not to replace ASL/other sign languages, but to add some support for a person who does not know ASL to speak clearly to a deaf person? If you're a teacher or a police officer or someone who needs to talk to all people, including deaf people, wouldn't learning the eight cues be a useful tool, even if you're not going to fully-learn ASL?
    - bluGill 6y ago
      Maybe, but I don't see the point. Speaking with your hands is weird no matter what you are doing. Learning ASL signs instead of something else is that much harder, and ASL is a lot richer than either. Of course I can't claim any ability in ASL. When taking the baby sign language classes my teacher was very insistent that to the baby what sign you use doesn't matter, but we should use ASL signs because learning any other sign isn't any easier, and this way we have a few dozen signs that are actually useful after the baby grows up. Which is the point: if you learn some signs of ASL you can communicate better than pointing. When you learn something else your are just pointing and hoping you are understood.
    - jacobr1 6y ago
      If the signs are just small set of cues for the most common phrases a police officer needs to convey, then why not just teach this as an ASL subset?
      - SamBam 6y ago
        Did you watch the video on Cued Speech? It's not a set of signs for common phrases at all. It's simply a small set of gestures that accompany some of the hard-to-lip-read sounds, like /m/ /p/ /b/. So if you're saying "mat" "bat" or "pat" those all look the same to a lip-reader. With the cues, you have a small gesture that is distinct for /m/ /p/ /b/. They combine together to make a total of about a dozen gestures that can be used to differentiate between any hard-to-understand English word. So it's not a phrase book. It just allows you to say anything you want to say and be understood a little more clearly by a lip-reader.
sandworm101 6y ago
>> useful for hearing people in their day-to-day lives. You doubtless already use many signs. They may not be ASL but we do use a variety of hand gestures to convey very specific meanings.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  I'm not sure on the "very specific" part. We use some general, non-specific signs ("OK", "good" [thumbs up, depending on your cultural background and situation]). We, the hearing community in my country (UK), use gestures too of course. Could you give a few examples of signs hearing people use where you are that you consider "very specific"?
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    >>> where you are that you consider "very specific"? Flipping the bird. Pointing at things. Hand signals when driving (more a thing for motorcyclists). Then there are plenty of job-specific things. Crane operators have their own system of very specific hand gestures for directing crane operations. The military has a host of standardized gestures. DJs/audio techs/musicians have a set for talking in loud environments. https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/safety_haz/materials_handling/signals.html https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/safety_haz/materials_handlin... https://armynavyoutdoors.com/blog/learn-military-hand-signals/ https://armynavyoutdoors.com/blog/learn-military-hand-signal... The little girl in this vid managed to convey a very specific meaning to a passing ship using only a gesture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETrWMvicKps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETrWMvicKps
    - myself248 6y ago
      > The little girl in this vid managed to convey a very specific meaning to a passing ship using only a gesture. And it's SO specific that just reading that sentence, I knew exactly which meaning you meant, and which gesture. (Clicking the link to confirm was totally worth it though.) I've been on both ends of that gesture and it's always a hoot. > DJs/audio techs/musicians have a set for talking in loud environments. Whoah, really? I've improvised plenty, but I'm super curious if there's a standard set. You can always figure out "make louder", "make quieter", point at objects, mimic certain instruments. But it'd be nice to have more vocabulary beyond that.
dnndev 6y ago
Super powers Sign Language -> communicate with someone in a noisy room (across the room even) Braille -> A friend of mine learned braille so he could "read" books after his parents said lights out. What a rebel.
- medstrom 6y ago
  A risky habit: signing with other deaf drivers on the motorway. I've done it...
  - harrierpigeon 6y ago
    I've seen people doing that on the highway, too! It appears to generally be one gesture, and occasionally the horn is used for greater emphasis.
- gugagore 6y ago
  To the extent that these are related, it's because of disability. Braille is just a writing system. Signed languages are generally not.
- jfk13 6y ago
  Isn't that what flashlights are for?
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    Way easier to hide. If you were brave enough, you could literally read braille under the covers with your eyes closed while your parent had their head stuck through the door to check on you.
- myself248 6y ago
  Yes, super powers! I went to a high school where the drama department did at least one play a year in ASL. Brought in instructors from the local deaf community, and all the drama kids learned it. This was also business genius, because it basically guaranteed ticket sales. A huge number of deaf people in the area would show up for every such play, year after year. Even parents with kids at the school generally stop coming to plays after their kids graduate, but this audience was loyal on the scale of decades. It also meant that a significant chunk of the student body was now able to communicate in/across a noisy room. During assemblies and stuff, you'd see a dozen conversations in progress, not making a sound. Or, communicate near-silently. Clothes rustle and certain signs involve patting, but neither of those sticks out the way voices do. Coordinating a prank behind the teacher's back....
swsieber 6y ago
You know what signing is amazing for? Teaching babies to communicate before they have proper vocal control (preverbal is the term I think). We're talking useful communication at under a year. Something like 9-12 months.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Somewhat. Babies do tend to learn a few signs, and it is useful when they can indicate what they need. However as soon as they learn to talk they universally forget everything. I know people fluent in sign (a large part of their job is working with the deaf), and when they sign to babies the babies are like "you idiot: I just heard you talking to someone else so don't insult my intelligence by not talking to me" The babies can't say something so complex, but you can tell from their reaction that is about what they are thinking. Which is too bad, sign language would be useful in later life. Unless there is a deaf person in the babies life though they will refuse to have anything to do with it once they can speak.
  - Jtsummers 6y ago
    > I know people fluent in sign (a large part of their job is working with the deaf), and when they sign to babies the babies are like "you idiot: I just heard you talking to someone else so don't insult my intelligence by not talking to me" The way my friends have done this is to speak and sign, not just sign. I don't think any of them would've thought it was appropriate to only sign to a hearing child. The purpose was to teach them both the verbal language and a way to communicate back while they were still too young to verbalize (or, in one critical case, unable to speak due to a birth defect but were perfectly capable of hearing).
  - smithza 6y ago
    Babies do tend to learn a few signs...However as soon as they learn to talk they universally forget everything. This was our experience with our young child. It helped to be able to say "more" and sometimes "please" and eventually "all done" but eventually spoken words replaced this communication form. My wife and I have two semesters worth of education under Deaf teachers but have no plans of pressing further on this as a second language for our son.
bluGill 6y ago
It can be useful to have some signs, but don't confuse a few signs with a language. One like going to a foreign country and knowing how to ask where the bathroom is, and understanding because more their pointing than their words vs going to the country and getting into a discussion of something weird with a stranger that you just happen to meet. Sign language is a real language you can learn the language. Or you can learn a few signs: there is a place for both, but know which place you are in and don't pretend more.
- nsxwolf 6y ago
  Why do I always sense anger seething below the surface of any conversation about sign language?
  - medstrom 6y ago
    I think this occurs more in some countries than others, with low sign language awareness. Maybe the US especially due to monolinguality. It seems people love to assume things about other languages that are false and can be insulting. Like when you say an English sentence to a Mexican who doesn't understand it, and you respond by saying the same thing again but louder and slower. It looks like you think they're dense. Another example, the notion that monkeys can "learn sign language". They can learn to use some signs, like a newborn can learn some words, but how would you feel as a French speaker if someone said "look, the monkey speaks French!" just because they taught the monkey some French words? It implies not that the monkey is smart, but that French is so simplistic that even monkeys can understand it.
    - leesalminen 6y ago
      > Like when you say an English sentence to a Mexican who doesn't understand it, and you respond by saying the same thing again but louder and slower. It looks like you think they're dense. My wife is learning Spanish right now because we are moving to Costa Rica. Her most used phrase is “de espacio, por favor” which means “slowly, please”. She’s able to understand much more of the language when folks slow down and annunciate clearly. When I lived in Chile as a teen, I also asked people to do the same thing frequently until I became proficient. I still ask sometimes in other Spanish-speaking countries because their accent or dialect differs from what my ears are most used to. Speaking slowly and clearly to anyone learning a language is incredibly useful and is not insulting in any way.
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
Absolutely, my wife and I did basic BSL as a night class. Not only is it fascinating to get to know more of deaf culture but it's also really useful. You can learn from YouTube, a sign dictionary (online ones have video) ... but yes, conversation is probably the best way. A night class or MOOC?
ViViDboarder 6y ago
I’m heading but learned ASL at work. Ever since, I’ve tried to get my wife to learn because I’m always noticing times when it would be handy (pun not intended). Noisy places, when I’m brushing my teeth, when I want to be more discrete in public, communicating across a room without yelling.
- smithza 6y ago
  when I want to be more discrete in public .. I think there is an unkindness here, though I do not think your intentions are unkind. I had very close Brazilian-internationals while a freshman in college who very deliberately chose not to speak their native tongue around Americans due to them thinking it unkind. My wife and I frequently do use some simple signs across the room, like "ready to go" (we are both hearing but have two semesters of ASL education).
  - mcguire 6y ago
    In general, using a language those around you don't speak can be rude, but I was imagining more along the lines of "Come rescue me from this conspiracy theorist." Which would have been handy at one point for me.
    - triceratops 6y ago
      > using a language those around you don't speak can be rude, Like generally in public? Or when you're in a social group with others? For the first scenario, I'd almost always speak a second language if I could, for privacy reasons. And also because it's less distracting to others IMO - people tune out unfamiliar languages as noise but not conversations they can understand. But yeah it's rude in the second scenario.
      - mcguire 6y ago
        The downside in public is that the people who notice you're speaking another language will assume that you're talking about them and don't want to be overheard by the victim. It is less of a big deal than when you're in a social group, where someone could feel that you are deliberately excluding them.
cauliflower2718 6y ago
I was at a (seated) concert once, and the large family next to me would sign to each other to communicate without making noise. Signing has some nice advantages over whispering: you can sign to an entire group at once, but you can only whisper to one person at a time.
Kluny 6y ago
It would be awfully useful if both sandwich-eaters and sandwich-makers could learn the signs for, for example, spinach, chipotle, mustard, mayo, wrap, ciabatta, red onion, and so on. At my favorite sandwich counter, a full year into the pandemic, people are still communicating with the staff by yelling at them from 3 feet away from a plexiglass barrier, while everyone is wearing masks and everyone else in the store is yelling as well. Seriously, they haven't even tried to come up with a better system. Like.... pictures on the glass that you can point to? A form with checkboxes that you can hand over? Nope, we're going stick with yelling our lungs out.

gnuvince 6y ago

I didn't know much of anything about ASL, but seeing David Cowan at some press conferences in Georgia made me a bit curious. There's a nice video of him on Youtube[1] where he explains that deaf people's native language is ASL, and not English. That was absolutely flabbergasting to me, because I had always imagine, like you said, that it was just "do this gesture to mean this word and this gesture for this other word". [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd5JGN1jno8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd5JGN1jno8

bluGill 6y ago
It is more complex than that. ASL comes from french sign language, and so was always different from British sign language, and I suspect the grammar roots make sense in french. However since then things have diverged to the point that you can't really say there is anything in common with french sign language. Sign language only has a few (thousands) of signs. For the rest the signer finger spells the word they need, if they will use that word again they make up a new sign (often the first letter in a specific position). If a word is commonly used it will eventually enter the language in that city, and may or may not spread to other parts of the country/world. Obviously the finger spelling is the word in the spoken language not sign language. Warning, don't make up words in sign language until you are somewhat an expert. I know of a novice who needed to talk about a person named Ryan, so they gave Ryan a sign - not realizing that sign was already used for retard.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  > I know of a novice who needed to talk about a person named Ryan, so they gave Ryan a sign - not realizing that sign was already used for retard. Plausible deniability here.
- codyogden 6y ago
  > Sign language only has a few (thousands) of signs. For the rest the signer finger spells the word they need, if they will use that word again they make up a new sign (often the first letter in a specific position). I'm not sure where this information comes from, but doesn't quite seem correct. A sign is much more involved than simple vocabulary, and qualified signs exist outside the concept of a one-to-one, sign-to-word relationship. There are five parameters to any sign: handshape, location, movement, palm orientation, and non-manual communication (e.g. grammar, tone, and emotion). These parameters are all in use for every signed vocab word you can think of, but they're also used in idioms, whole phrases, classifiers, depictions, and even lexicalized English words that have incorporated fingerspelling elements with other parameters to create complete, separate, non-vocabulary signs of their own (e.g. KILLED, PIZZA, BUZZ, COMMON).

gedy 6y ago

Thanks for your explanation, however it left me with additional question as to its value when politicians/government use a sign language interpreter in speeches. If it's so nuanced and regional, wouldn't reading English text translation be better/clearer?

bluGill 6y ago
Don't assume all deaf people are good readers. Text is enough different from ASL that learning to read is like learning a foreign language. Some learn to read well, but some do not. If you want the later to understand you, then text is the wrong answer.

pbhjpbhj 6y ago

Here's another apparent misconception: sign language === ASL. There are many sign languages and many more dialects.

jbergstroem 6y ago
Swedish sign language used to be my native language due to having a deaf sister. After relocating to another part of the world and discussing languages, it surprised me how many times I had (have) to explain how "sign language" is not a language. That said; it is amazing how many sign languages can come to similar conclusions due to "always trying to find the simplest way of explaining yourself".
- interestica 6y ago
  > That said; it is amazing how many sign languages can come to similar conclusions due to "always trying to find the simplest way of explaining yourself". This is fascinating. Do you have an examples that stick out?
  - rblatz 6y ago
    So from my memory of ASL in college there was less worry about being rude or not offending. So if you were asked who someone was, you would start with their most identifiable feature. So if they are the only black guy in the room, or the most over weight you’d sign the black guy or the fat guy. Whereas in English it’s basically a joke now that we’d use just about any other descriptor besides those.
    - willcipriano 6y ago
      Does the language have the sort of precision required to say something like "rotund gentleman" instead? If not I can't really blame someone from saying something in the most polite way a language practically allows.
      - 6y ago

jeffwass 6y ago

I live in the UK and we have BSL (British Sign Language). It’s absolutely bonkers that two fairly different sign languages exist for the same base spoken language. That said, BSL uses a lot of facial cues, not just hands and arms, to allow for a range expression. Eg puffing out your cheeks to accentuate certain words.

michaelmior 6y ago
The use of facial expressions is also incredibly important in ASL.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mabbo 6y ago
> It’s absolutely bonkers that two fairly different sign languages exist for the same base spoken language Historically speaking, it's because of British snobbery, allegedly. This is how my ASL professor told us it at least. American Thomas Gallaudet went to the British school for the Deaf hoping to learn BSL, etc. But it was not long after the American Revolution and the British weren't very friendly and wouldn't help him. So he went to France and the French taught him (Old) French Sign Language. FSL became the basis of ASL, along with a number of local influences from Martha's Vineyard sign language (a small locally developed signed language). Even then, a friend of mine from university who is very hard of hearing and mostly signs told me that on a trip to Britain he met some British Deaf people at a bar and by the end of the night was mostly fluent. There's enough overlap and enough shared experience between Deaf people that one can learn very quickly. > That said, BSL uses a lot of facial cues, not just hands and arms, to allow for a range expression. Eg puffing out your cheeks to accentuate certain words. This is 100% common to all Signed languages. Facial cues are huge in ASL. Before class, not joking, I would practice in the mirror to warm myself up. My first ASL prof described it by saying that in English, you could read off each word like a robot, with no inflection or tone- and that would be the same as signing with just your hands.
- _nalply 6y ago
  Thomas Gallaudet was accompanied by a French Deaf person, Laurent Clerc, who later died in Washington DC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurent_Clerc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurent_Clerc

tyingq 6y ago

I'd add in a third bullet noting that sign languages generally favor omitting unnecessary grammar, structure, etc. Like "I love you" as [love sign] -> [point at person you love]. Or for example that "very" might exist in a signed language, but isn't often used. Just substituted with a more physically animated/vigorous version of the adjective, or added facial expression.

GordonS 6y ago
Some go even further - my daughter uses Makaton, which is a sign (and symbol) language designed for people that have difficulty communicating (for different reasons, including cognitive impairment and neurological problems). In general the idea is to only use as many signs as you need, although of course you can amend depending on who is communicating. As a point of note, Makaton is used at least a little at a lot of primary schools in Scotland (I would guess across the rest of the UK too), as a "supplementary language" for all kids. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makaton https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makaton
_nalply 6y ago
The thing of omitting grammar: That's simply not true, I am sorry. Signed languages have a complex visual grammar. Words are inflected in many ways. I am a somewhat native speaker of the local signed language, and I sometimes discover that I uttered something I couldn't translate into German (the local oral language) without losing some meaning. This usually concerns dynamics, location and emotion. One example, I explained my son how to use the chairlift and how the chairlift will take off. Linguists have discovered that this is not pantomime. I forgot how they named the complicated movements but I remember it is something like a cluster of micro utterances. Your example of «I love you» is an example of inflection. You can vary this sign, to indicate a special dynamic, for example «for a long time», «slowly increasing in intensity», «and you, too, sincerely and deeply», and many others.
- tyingq 6y ago
  Perhaps there's a better way to characterize it? I'm talking about stuff like this for ASL: You look surprised => You look surprise They came here recently => Recent they come

k_sze 6y ago

Here’s another thing that surprised me until I experienced it first-hand: one-handed variant of sign language. I rarely bump into deaf/mute people in Hong Kong. I once saw a guy holding his phone with one hand and doing sign language with the other because he was video chatting over the phone! Of course, logically we don’t need the invention of mobile phone video chat to warrant the invention of one-handed sign language. You can just imagine some deaf/mute people holding groceries in one hand and still needing to talk. One shouldn’t have to expect them to drop the groceries on the floor in order to talk. Nevertheless, it never occurred to me until I saw it.