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I suspect (and hope) you had no ill intent but this comment is really ignorant. There is a terrible history of Deaf people being discriminated against and force

I suspect (and hope) you had no ill intent but this comment is really ignorant. There is a terrible history of Deaf people being discriminated against and forced to “lip read” rather than communicate through ASL. And by “forced” I mean they were more or less mentally and physically tortured into compliance. Your comment not only perpetuates this totally false narrative that there’s a “problem” with ASL but it makes it sound like Deaf people have chosen only to socialize among themselves when the reality is that we have built a world that makes communication difficult for Deaf people. It doesn’t have to be that way: https://icyseas.org/2014/01/12/marthas-vineyard-deaf-people-and-a-shared-sign-language/ https://icyseas.org/2014/01/12/marthas-vineyard-deaf-people-... You might find the Deaf mythology(?) of Eyeth interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/10/opinion/deaf-population-integration.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/10/opinion/deaf-population-i...

generalizations 4y ago
I feel like you're making my comment out to be a lot more hostile than it was intended. I don't see any "problem" with deaf people. I see ASL as, effectively, a foreign language; and it makes sense to me that in general, you're able to live more effectively when you can speak the same language as the people around you. When I traveled overseas to a spanish-speaking country, I learned spanish so that I could communicate with the people there. It would be unreasonable for me to show up as the cliche american tourist and expect the spanish-speaking people there to learn english so that I could communicate with them.
- PuppyTailWags 4y ago
  I think you're misunderstanding the parent poster: You don't have to be intentionally hostile to perpetuate harmful and ignorant falsehoods. In fact the parent poster states they don't believe you're intentionally perpetuating ignorance. But, it's reasonable for someone to firmly rebut harmful ignorance in a manner, even if that level of firmness doesn't match your self-perception of your ignorance.
  - generalizations 4y ago
    Which of us is ignorantly perpetuating a falsehood? It's important to maintain civil dialog until the truth is discovered. Edit: got annoyed.
    - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
      The poster in question said you were ignorant and linked to multiple places to give you more context. edited: the below sections refers to something that has been edited out I understand that it might feel harsh, but to me, it looks like you're just being corrected and rebutted just like you said you'd be open to.
      - generalizations 4y ago
        I did read the links. And my response incorporated what I'd understood from those. I was actually kinda curious how the parent would respond to the analogy with foreign travel. Rebuttals aren't just one-and-done. You have to be able to actually defend your position, and that requires a lot more than just one statement.
    - giraffe_lady 4y ago
      > Which of us is ignorantly perpetuating a falsehood? lmao it is absolutely you that's what we're trying to tell you
      - generalizations 4y ago
        That's the problem with logic; it works both ways. If you were the ignorant one perpetuating the falsehood, how would you know unless I told you?
        giraffe_lady 4y ago
        Wait are you implying you think the main way people learn things is by spewing bullshit on the internet until someone contests it? Read a book ya dingus. wikipedia. christ.
- elliekelly 4y ago
  I’m not sure how you can read hostility into my comment when I plainly stated I didn’t think you were commenting with ill intent. Ignorance doesn’t require intent though. ASL isn’t a “foreign” language. It’s an American language. In fact, it’s more “American” than English. People who communicate via ASL aren’t foreigners on holiday. They’re our friends and family and neighbors. You are absolutely correct in your assumption that being able to communicate with those around you is important! Imagine if everyone around you just refused to engage with you verbally and would only communicate via text messages. If you’re speaking they completely ignore you until you write it down. If they’re speaking while you’re around it’s always in whispers so that you can really only get bits and pieces. How would you feel? Annoyed? Excluded? Like you’re not able to fully understand conversations? Your travel analogy doesn’t hold water because (in addition to Deaf people not being foreigners or guests!) you seem unwilling or unable to understand that (1) hearing is a critical component of effective verbal communication and (2) Deaf people can’t hear. Again, I’ll chalk it up to ignorance rather than ill intent but your analogy as a whole is pretty gross to paint Deaf people as entitled, unreasonable, and demanding. Your analogy is akin to suggesting it’s unreasonable for me, a person who can walk, to rollerskate everywhere I go and it would be unreasonable for me to expect curb cuts just so I could rollerskate everywhere so therefore it’s unreasonable for people who use a wheelchair to expect curb cuts. If someone who uses a wheelchair wants to use the sidewalk they should just try fucking walking right? I don’t know why no one has thought of that!
  - generalizations 4y ago
    That's fair. It's easy to read hostility where there isn't any. > ASL isn’t a “foreign” language. It’s an American language. Elsewhere in this thread you mentioned that "ASL is a complete and distinct natural language in its own right," and that's the sense I was trying to convey by calling it a "foreign" language. It's as hard to acquire as a foreign language, and carries the same benefits. And it fit the analogy. I appreciate both of your analogies, but I think they aren't quite fair. Not going to the massive effort of learning a new language isn't really the same as 'refusing to engage'. And the analogies seem to understate the effort involved by everyone who is not deaf to learn ASL. It's just not as easy as installing curb cuts (I could probably do one of those in an afternoon...become conversational in ASL? not so much). I guess, to me, it comes down to the level of effort being asked of me. I'm happy to be accommodating, up to a point. Let's engage in whatever medium is most suited. But asking me to put in the massive time and intellectual commitment of learning a new language is past that point. And I think that's the case for a lot of other people as well; maybe most. > If someone who uses a wheelchair wants to use the sidewalk they should just try fucking walking right? I don’t know why no one has thought of that! I had a relative who was deaf. An engineer. He learned to lip read, and that gave him more freedom to work with others and be effective in communities that did not know ASL.
phailhaus 4y ago
Unfortunately, there are very few Deaf people, so there is no world in which everyone learns ASL just in case they meet a Deaf person. It just doesn't scale, and so what you end up with is isolating them even further. The best approach is to bridge the gap: similar glasses can be used by hearing folks to translate sign language, and it theoretically generalizes to all foreign languages.
- elliekelly 4y ago
  Check out that first link about Martha’s Vineyard ;)
  - phailhaus 4y ago
    Yeah that's what I'm replying to. Most of the country is not like that so ASL is not going to be a shared language, and expecting them to move is not feasible either.
YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
There’s nothing inherent to the world we have built that’s stopping deaf people using the Internet in their own languages. Yet there’s no ASL Wikipedia. Why not?
- elliekelly 4y ago
  There are many languages that don’t use a system of writing.
  - YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
    But there's not many that can't use a system of writing.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - elliekelly 4y ago
      This is stupid and meaningless pedantry. Like when you ask your teacher if you can go to the bathroom and they say “I don’t know, can you?” A system of writing can be used for any language. (Have you ever wondered why English, a Germanic language, or Vietnamese, an Austroasiatic language, use a writing system based on the Latin alphabet?) Any language that doesn’t use a system of writing can use a system of writing. It’s not like it’s some sort of existential impossibility.
      - YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
        You miss the point, and your aggressive tone is not conducive to civil discussion. As you say, any language can use a system of writing, so if one doesn't, it's not because its users can't write, but because they don't want to write. Writing is literal stone-age technology, after all.
- TRiG_Ireland 4y ago
  There is in fact a test ASL Wikipedia on the Wikimedia Incubator, written in Sutton SignWriting. One of the issues is that Sutton SignWriting is not yet fully supported by Unicode.

generalizations 4y ago

I feel like you're making my comment out to be a lot more hostile than it was intended. I don't see any "problem" with deaf people. I see ASL as, effectively, a foreign language; and it makes sense to me that in general, you're able to live more effectively when you can speak the same language as the people around you. When I traveled overseas to a spanish-speaking country, I learned spanish so that I could communicate with the people there. It would be unreasonable for me to show up as the cliche american tourist and expect the spanish-speaking people there to learn english so that I could communicate with them.

PuppyTailWags 4y ago
I think you're misunderstanding the parent poster: You don't have to be intentionally hostile to perpetuate harmful and ignorant falsehoods. In fact the parent poster states they don't believe you're intentionally perpetuating ignorance. But, it's reasonable for someone to firmly rebut harmful ignorance in a manner, even if that level of firmness doesn't match your self-perception of your ignorance.
- generalizations 4y ago
  Which of us is ignorantly perpetuating a falsehood? It's important to maintain civil dialog until the truth is discovered. Edit: got annoyed.
  - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
    The poster in question said you were ignorant and linked to multiple places to give you more context. edited: the below sections refers to something that has been edited out I understand that it might feel harsh, but to me, it looks like you're just being corrected and rebutted just like you said you'd be open to.
    - generalizations 4y ago
      I did read the links. And my response incorporated what I'd understood from those. I was actually kinda curious how the parent would respond to the analogy with foreign travel. Rebuttals aren't just one-and-done. You have to be able to actually defend your position, and that requires a lot more than just one statement.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    > Which of us is ignorantly perpetuating a falsehood? lmao it is absolutely you that's what we're trying to tell you
    - generalizations 4y ago
      That's the problem with logic; it works both ways. If you were the ignorant one perpetuating the falsehood, how would you know unless I told you?
      - giraffe_lady 4y ago
        Wait are you implying you think the main way people learn things is by spewing bullshit on the internet until someone contests it? Read a book ya dingus. wikipedia. christ.
elliekelly 4y ago
I’m not sure how you can read hostility into my comment when I plainly stated I didn’t think you were commenting with ill intent. Ignorance doesn’t require intent though. ASL isn’t a “foreign” language. It’s an American language. In fact, it’s more “American” than English. People who communicate via ASL aren’t foreigners on holiday. They’re our friends and family and neighbors. You are absolutely correct in your assumption that being able to communicate with those around you is important! Imagine if everyone around you just refused to engage with you verbally and would only communicate via text messages. If you’re speaking they completely ignore you until you write it down. If they’re speaking while you’re around it’s always in whispers so that you can really only get bits and pieces. How would you feel? Annoyed? Excluded? Like you’re not able to fully understand conversations? Your travel analogy doesn’t hold water because (in addition to Deaf people not being foreigners or guests!) you seem unwilling or unable to understand that (1) hearing is a critical component of effective verbal communication and (2) Deaf people can’t hear. Again, I’ll chalk it up to ignorance rather than ill intent but your analogy as a whole is pretty gross to paint Deaf people as entitled, unreasonable, and demanding. Your analogy is akin to suggesting it’s unreasonable for me, a person who can walk, to rollerskate everywhere I go and it would be unreasonable for me to expect curb cuts just so I could rollerskate everywhere so therefore it’s unreasonable for people who use a wheelchair to expect curb cuts. If someone who uses a wheelchair wants to use the sidewalk they should just try fucking walking right? I don’t know why no one has thought of that!
- generalizations 4y ago
  That's fair. It's easy to read hostility where there isn't any. > ASL isn’t a “foreign” language. It’s an American language. Elsewhere in this thread you mentioned that "ASL is a complete and distinct natural language in its own right," and that's the sense I was trying to convey by calling it a "foreign" language. It's as hard to acquire as a foreign language, and carries the same benefits. And it fit the analogy. I appreciate both of your analogies, but I think they aren't quite fair. Not going to the massive effort of learning a new language isn't really the same as 'refusing to engage'. And the analogies seem to understate the effort involved by everyone who is not deaf to learn ASL. It's just not as easy as installing curb cuts (I could probably do one of those in an afternoon...become conversational in ASL? not so much). I guess, to me, it comes down to the level of effort being asked of me. I'm happy to be accommodating, up to a point. Let's engage in whatever medium is most suited. But asking me to put in the massive time and intellectual commitment of learning a new language is past that point. And I think that's the case for a lot of other people as well; maybe most. > If someone who uses a wheelchair wants to use the sidewalk they should just try fucking walking right? I don’t know why no one has thought of that! I had a relative who was deaf. An engineer. He learned to lip read, and that gave him more freedom to work with others and be effective in communities that did not know ASL.

phailhaus 4y ago

Unfortunately, there are very few Deaf people, so there is no world in which everyone learns ASL just in case they meet a Deaf person. It just doesn't scale, and so what you end up with is isolating them even further. The best approach is to bridge the gap: similar glasses can be used by hearing folks to translate sign language, and it theoretically generalizes to all foreign languages.

elliekelly 4y ago
Check out that first link about Martha’s Vineyard ;)
- phailhaus 4y ago
  Yeah that's what I'm replying to. Most of the country is not like that so ASL is not going to be a shared language, and expecting them to move is not feasible either.

YurgenJurgensen 4y ago

There’s nothing inherent to the world we have built that’s stopping deaf people using the Internet in their own languages. Yet there’s no ASL Wikipedia. Why not?

elliekelly 4y ago
There are many languages that don’t use a system of writing.
- YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
  But there's not many that can't use a system of writing.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - elliekelly 4y ago
    This is stupid and meaningless pedantry. Like when you ask your teacher if you can go to the bathroom and they say “I don’t know, can you?” A system of writing can be used for any language. (Have you ever wondered why English, a Germanic language, or Vietnamese, an Austroasiatic language, use a writing system based on the Latin alphabet?) Any language that doesn’t use a system of writing can use a system of writing. It’s not like it’s some sort of existential impossibility.
    - YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
      You miss the point, and your aggressive tone is not conducive to civil discussion. As you say, any language can use a system of writing, so if one doesn't, it's not because its users can't write, but because they don't want to write. Writing is literal stone-age technology, after all.
TRiG_Ireland 4y ago
There is in fact a test ASL Wikipedia on the Wikimedia Incubator, written in Sutton SignWriting. One of the issues is that Sutton SignWriting is not yet fully supported by Unicode.