> 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 n

> 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).