8 ms·

This reminded me of a story my professor once told us back in college. I was studying sign language and she is deaf. She told us growing up in the old days they

by atum47 2y ago

This reminded me of a story my professor once told us back in college. I was studying sign language and she is deaf. She told us growing up in the old days they didn't had specialized schools for deaf people (since they could read?!) so she attended regular school and was not doing ok. She struggled a lot until she finally got the attention that she needed from a teacher who was able to instruct her in sign language (which believe you or not is Brazil's second official language). Before that she told us she was not able to have complex thoughts. She didn't know her father had a name, for instance. She thought his "name" was daddy. She is a brilliant woman and I'm glad I attended her class and also, that she was able to find someone who helped her, growing up.

ptk 2y ago
I believed for years that my good friend’s dad’s name was Aba and even called him that once before I realized later that it’s the Hebrew word for father. I had been having complex thoughts for years at that point so it was a bit embarrassing.
- atum47 2y ago
  I see that you've been skipping Sunday school...
  - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
    Not sure that Torah school is on Sunday ...
    - atum47 2y ago
      Romans 8:15
    - parkthomp 2y ago
      It definitely is. Shabbos is on Friday and Saturday. - Observant jew. Edit: I’ll clarify that in some rare instances, reform Jewish centered programs have Hebrew school on Saturday, though it’s much more rare.
    - thinkerswell 2y ago
      [dead]
- harryp_peng 2y ago
  Technically 'daddy' is a name. A name is fundamentally just a label that we use to identify other people and objects. Post Malone, your first and last name are part of the universal naming system like the Kilometer, and 'daddy' is a personal system relative to the conscious experience of the user.
  - psychoslave 2y ago
    People most often can easily can handle that there is a qualitative difference between common and proper name.
  - samatman 2y ago
    "daddy" is a kinship term, or familial title. It's a noun, and a mode of address, but it isn't a name, technically or otherwise. There are a few posts in this very thread about children realizing that "daddy" isn't just their father, but anyone's. Much like when you refer to a doctor as "doc", or a professor as "professor". To prove the point, there are people who have more than one person in their lives whom they call "Dad" or whatever variation. Raised by a gay couple, or close enough to a stepfather to think of him in those terms. Most of us only have one "Dad", but this isn't universal, and we all know that everyone has one, whether they refer to him that way, or even know him at all.
elevaet 2y ago
I believe that bit about sign language in Brazil. When I spent some time there years back I was impressed that most people seemed to know a bit of sign language. There is also a lot of informal hand gesture-slang culture. I remember some things like "let's go", "robbery/rip off", "it's crowded"
- riffraff 2y ago
  Is the informal gesture slang based on the sign language, or Are they just gestures? Cause I'm Italian and we have a ton of those but they have nothing to do with the Italian Sign Language (LIS).
  - netcan 2y ago
    I'm curious to see Italian Sign Language now. I bet it's way bigger and more urgent than most.
    - hnbad 2y ago
      Here's a video that demonstrates LIS (Italian Sign Language) after a short intro in (spoken) Italian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79Y2a8WZDOo&t=30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79Y2a8WZDOo&t=30 It doesn't seem significantly different from other sign languages to me but I'm not fluent in any of them so YMMV. Sign languages always feel a bit "big and urgent" to me.
      - YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
        This is funny. I was sitting last night with two friends who are Greek like me and the Italian boyfriend of one of them, and watching a bit of that video, well, we all spoke just like that. None of us knows sign language. Tsipouro was flowing freely and it was warm and friendly and inhibitions were lowered so I guess we reverted to our natural behaviour, unimpeded by social norms (I live in the cold North). Or it's something about Italians. I don't speak a word of Italian but I'm fluent in French so whenever I'm in Italy (that is, often) I basically try to speak French with an Italian accent. The vocabulary is almost identical, the grammar is very different, but I have never failed to put my point across. See, communication is a two-way street and Italians seem to be culturally trained to try and meet the other person halfway, and not leave anything to chance. Like "You have to understand what I'm saying (gesticulates wildly for emphasis)". Greeks are a bit like that also, but we have fewer common roots with other European languages than Italians so it's harder to just guess what the other person is trying to say. My experience with Northern and Western Europeans is very different. If I don't speak with a perfect French accent and grammar, for example, I get odd looks and questions for clarification. The British just sit and wait until you've said things exactly the way they expect them. Germans I think don't even try (I'm less experienced with Germans). Bit of a thread hijack I guess, but I really do wonder where all this comes from. I don't believe in races, but there sure seems to be some kind of cultural influence because there is a pattern and it is impossible not to notice it. Some cultures are just better trained in at least some kinds of communication.
kqr 2y ago
James Gleick in The Information also describes cases of the effect of traditional literacy on complexity/abstraction of thought. He claims that literacy is nearly a prerequisite for things like zeroth-order logical reasoning and understanding of abstract shapes. Two examples he gives: - Some illiterate people are told that all bears in the north are white, that Greenland is a country in the north, then they are asked what colours bears in Greenland have. They answer, "Different regions have differently coloured bears. I haven't been to Greenland. But I have seen a brown bear." I would have said, "Based on the information you gave me, I would guess white." - When shown a rectangle and asked what shape it is some illiterate answer things like "a door" or "a playing card" but struggle to find things doors and playing cards have in common. I go to the abstract shapes immediately when I'm shown drawings by my son. It's almost at a point where it feels like my logical/abstract reasoning stands in the way of creativity. ---- But I don't know how much this is personality (I happen to have a knack for logical/abstract reasoning and I happened to learn to read when I was very young) and how much is an effect of reading. After all, anthropologists are great at the concrete rather than abstract, but maybe they get lots of training in it. I've also heard the Japanese are better at it. TFA clearly postulates it has more to do with the kind of vocabulary, or maybe it's on an increasing scale with more language.
- awsanswers 2y ago
  I love that book
  - kqr 2y ago
    It's a bit pop-sciency but I realised how much I had learned from it when I re-read it!
- simplicio 2y ago
  The second one seems odd, or maybe Im misunderstanding. Most children develop the idea of abstract shapes well before they can read.
  - kqr 2y ago
lynx23 2y ago
Even with sign language and the ability to read, deaf people often have very limited grammar and sometimes outright bad writing style. We rely far more on spoken language then we think. If you take that away, so much practice when it comes to using your native "tongue" is simply not had. A similar effect, although not as pronounced, is with blind people (my tribe) having very bad spelling. The reason for that is blind people seldomly read themseves, they usually employ speech synthesis to have text read to them. However, that also means they basically never see the spelling of uncommon words, so all they can do is guess, which sometimes leads to hilarious results. Since I use braille primarily to access a computer, the effect isn't as pronounced for me. But I noticed early on that I erred a lot when it came to street and city names. Until I realized, well, sighted people do actually read street signs. So after a while, certain spellings just stick. Since I almost never did that... I didn't know, wasn't soaked in the information to pick it up.
- nextaccountic 2y ago
  Note that for people deaf from birth, their written language is typically their second language, and their mother tongue is sign language And written language is harder to learn exactly because they can't pronounce words
  - lynx23 2y ago
    Yes, I was inaxact, sorry for that. Note that the term "mother" tongue is problematic in this context anyway, as there are many examples of caregivers and school systems not being fluent in sign language. I know a 70-something woman which turned out to have a deaf brother. Observing her while he was around, she didn't sign to him, she simply expected him to read from her lips. Which is very telling. Sign language is considered "their language" from her point of view, and she never aspired to actually learn it. After 50+ years of having a deaf brother... Just a recent anecdote, but still the norm. Deaf people have also been prevented from signing in certain schools. Similar things happened in the early days of Braille. Luis Braille never lived to see his system being used officially. He taught it in secret, as the power that be actually prevented it from being used for many decades. If you look long enough, there is a lot of patrnosation and ignorance in the way disabled people are treated by society, past and present.

by atum47 2y ago

ptk 2y ago

I believed for years that my good friend’s dad’s name was Aba and even called him that once before I realized later that it’s the Hebrew word for father. I had been having complex thoughts for years at that point so it was a bit embarrassing.

atum47 2y ago
I see that you've been skipping Sunday school...
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  Not sure that Torah school is on Sunday ...
  - atum47 2y ago
    Romans 8:15
  - parkthomp 2y ago
    It definitely is. Shabbos is on Friday and Saturday. - Observant jew. Edit: I’ll clarify that in some rare instances, reform Jewish centered programs have Hebrew school on Saturday, though it’s much more rare.
  - thinkerswell 2y ago
    [dead]
harryp_peng 2y ago
Technically 'daddy' is a name. A name is fundamentally just a label that we use to identify other people and objects. Post Malone, your first and last name are part of the universal naming system like the Kilometer, and 'daddy' is a personal system relative to the conscious experience of the user.
- psychoslave 2y ago
  People most often can easily can handle that there is a qualitative difference between common and proper name.
- samatman 2y ago
  "daddy" is a kinship term, or familial title. It's a noun, and a mode of address, but it isn't a name, technically or otherwise. There are a few posts in this very thread about children realizing that "daddy" isn't just their father, but anyone's. Much like when you refer to a doctor as "doc", or a professor as "professor". To prove the point, there are people who have more than one person in their lives whom they call "Dad" or whatever variation. Raised by a gay couple, or close enough to a stepfather to think of him in those terms. Most of us only have one "Dad", but this isn't universal, and we all know that everyone has one, whether they refer to him that way, or even know him at all.

elevaet 2y ago

I believe that bit about sign language in Brazil. When I spent some time there years back I was impressed that most people seemed to know a bit of sign language. There is also a lot of informal hand gesture-slang culture. I remember some things like "let's go", "robbery/rip off", "it's crowded"

riffraff 2y ago
Is the informal gesture slang based on the sign language, or Are they just gestures? Cause I'm Italian and we have a ton of those but they have nothing to do with the Italian Sign Language (LIS).
- netcan 2y ago
  I'm curious to see Italian Sign Language now. I bet it's way bigger and more urgent than most.
  - hnbad 2y ago
    Here's a video that demonstrates LIS (Italian Sign Language) after a short intro in (spoken) Italian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79Y2a8WZDOo&t=30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79Y2a8WZDOo&t=30 It doesn't seem significantly different from other sign languages to me but I'm not fluent in any of them so YMMV. Sign languages always feel a bit "big and urgent" to me.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
      This is funny. I was sitting last night with two friends who are Greek like me and the Italian boyfriend of one of them, and watching a bit of that video, well, we all spoke just like that. None of us knows sign language. Tsipouro was flowing freely and it was warm and friendly and inhibitions were lowered so I guess we reverted to our natural behaviour, unimpeded by social norms (I live in the cold North). Or it's something about Italians. I don't speak a word of Italian but I'm fluent in French so whenever I'm in Italy (that is, often) I basically try to speak French with an Italian accent. The vocabulary is almost identical, the grammar is very different, but I have never failed to put my point across. See, communication is a two-way street and Italians seem to be culturally trained to try and meet the other person halfway, and not leave anything to chance. Like "You have to understand what I'm saying (gesticulates wildly for emphasis)". Greeks are a bit like that also, but we have fewer common roots with other European languages than Italians so it's harder to just guess what the other person is trying to say. My experience with Northern and Western Europeans is very different. If I don't speak with a perfect French accent and grammar, for example, I get odd looks and questions for clarification. The British just sit and wait until you've said things exactly the way they expect them. Germans I think don't even try (I'm less experienced with Germans). Bit of a thread hijack I guess, but I really do wonder where all this comes from. I don't believe in races, but there sure seems to be some kind of cultural influence because there is a pattern and it is impossible not to notice it. Some cultures are just better trained in at least some kinds of communication.

kqr 2y ago

James Gleick in The Information also describes cases of the effect of traditional literacy on complexity/abstraction of thought. He claims that literacy is nearly a prerequisite for things like zeroth-order logical reasoning and understanding of abstract shapes. Two examples he gives: - Some illiterate people are told that all bears in the north are white, that Greenland is a country in the north, then they are asked what colours bears in Greenland have. They answer, "Different regions have differently coloured bears. I haven't been to Greenland. But I have seen a brown bear." I would have said, "Based on the information you gave me, I would guess white." - When shown a rectangle and asked what shape it is some illiterate answer things like "a door" or "a playing card" but struggle to find things doors and playing cards have in common. I go to the abstract shapes immediately when I'm shown drawings by my son. It's almost at a point where it feels like my logical/abstract reasoning stands in the way of creativity. ---- But I don't know how much this is personality (I happen to have a knack for logical/abstract reasoning and I happened to learn to read when I was very young) and how much is an effect of reading. After all, anthropologists are great at the concrete rather than abstract, but maybe they get lots of training in it. I've also heard the Japanese are better at it. TFA clearly postulates it has more to do with the kind of vocabulary, or maybe it's on an increasing scale with more language.

awsanswers 2y ago
I love that book
- kqr 2y ago
  It's a bit pop-sciency but I realised how much I had learned from it when I re-read it!
simplicio 2y ago
The second one seems odd, or maybe Im misunderstanding. Most children develop the idea of abstract shapes well before they can read.
- kqr 2y ago

lynx23 2y ago

Even with sign language and the ability to read, deaf people often have very limited grammar and sometimes outright bad writing style. We rely far more on spoken language then we think. If you take that away, so much practice when it comes to using your native "tongue" is simply not had. A similar effect, although not as pronounced, is with blind people (my tribe) having very bad spelling. The reason for that is blind people seldomly read themseves, they usually employ speech synthesis to have text read to them. However, that also means they basically never see the spelling of uncommon words, so all they can do is guess, which sometimes leads to hilarious results. Since I use braille primarily to access a computer, the effect isn't as pronounced for me. But I noticed early on that I erred a lot when it came to street and city names. Until I realized, well, sighted people do actually read street signs. So after a while, certain spellings just stick. Since I almost never did that... I didn't know, wasn't soaked in the information to pick it up.

nextaccountic 2y ago
Note that for people deaf from birth, their written language is typically their second language, and their mother tongue is sign language And written language is harder to learn exactly because they can't pronounce words
- lynx23 2y ago
  Yes, I was inaxact, sorry for that. Note that the term "mother" tongue is problematic in this context anyway, as there are many examples of caregivers and school systems not being fluent in sign language. I know a 70-something woman which turned out to have a deaf brother. Observing her while he was around, she didn't sign to him, she simply expected him to read from her lips. Which is very telling. Sign language is considered "their language" from her point of view, and she never aspired to actually learn it. After 50+ years of having a deaf brother... Just a recent anecdote, but still the norm. Deaf people have also been prevented from signing in certain schools. Similar things happened in the early days of Braille. Luis Braille never lived to see his system being used officially. He taught it in secret, as the power that be actually prevented it from being used for many decades. If you look long enough, there is a lot of patrnosation and ignorance in the way disabled people are treated by society, past and present.