DavidLawson1989
New Member
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2012
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I know a good deal about ASL, but I have so many questions! I hope that somebody can help with answering some of them!
1. Do you know the signs for ‘I love you’ in other languages? I have found 20 so far - [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iwef74-iII]I Love You in 20 Sign Languages - YouTube[/ame]
2. Anyone fluent in both ASL and BSL? What, if any, are the syntax differences between ASL and British Sign Language? Wikipedia says there is 30% overlap in signs between the two; that seems wrong, it seems like it’s closer to 10%. Is that your experience too?
3. Do you know any good finger fumblers (the sign equivalent of tongue twisters)? The only one that I know is ‘good blood, bad blood’ but that’s much of a finger fumbler!
4. What’s your favorite sign? I think that ‘oversleep’ is a beautiful compound sign, and the sign for ROFL is perfect!
5. Are you a hearing people who has learned sign and now unconsciously signs to your hearing friends? How do other people react to that?
6. Have you relished or struggled with the Deaf norms? For instance, I love how Deaf people on the whole are jokier than hearing people.
7. Has anyone pretended to be Deafer than they are? I’ve heard people doing this to get out of speeding tickets.
8. Does anyone have the same experience as me, suspecting that you think slower than a hearing person with the same intelligence as you. I don’t know how to test this but I have the inkling that it’s harder for me to form my thoughts than for an otherwise similar hearing person. [There is some research, at the least, that suggests that us Deaf have slightly worse short term memory than the hearing.]
9. What are surprising benefits of being Deaf? Recently, for instance, somebody told me that being Deaf helped them to learn a new language. How? They are already trained to: pay attention; and be okay with making mistakes and embarrassing themselves.
10. What are the challenges currently facing the Deaf Power movement? How do we best change a widespread deferral amongst the Deaf to the hearing and the authorities?
11. What signs do you often confuse? Like I know that brown and beer have the same sign (and the middle finger means brother in Taiwan!).
12. Do sign languages across the world have a similar grammar? I was reading about ASL grammar and that question words – who, what, why, when, why – are generally placed at the end of a sentence (unless it’s a short sentence, in which case it doesn’t matter) because then you can make a question face at the end of what you say. If you said these question words at the start of the sentence then you would have to make and hold a question face from the start of what you say – which would be like a hearing person using the tone of voice to indicate a question for a whole sentence. Difficult. This suggests a good reason why question words would be at the end of questions in all sign languages. Is that right? Are there other grammatical similarities?
13. I read a book with rhyming signs – signs with the same classifiers – such as date and divorce, or together and act. Are rhyming songs a thing in ASL? I’ve never seen any and would love to!
14. Are there still any politically incorrect signs? I know we used to sign China using slit-eyed motion, but now we use their sign for China (although other countries continue to use the sign ‘dirty’ to refer to America!). For instance, my hearing friends think that having the male signs, father, brother etc, at the head and the female signs, aunt, grandmother etc, at the mouth is sexist. Is there any reaction to this?
15. Is the cued speech between English and Portuguese similar? I want to use it to learn Portuguese.
16. Do anyone of you automatically pretend to understand what people say even though you are now comfortable with telling people that you don’t understand? This seems like a deeply entrenched habit for me and I’m wondering how to break it.
17. How was ASL spread across the world? For Nigeria I’m guessing that it was brought over by Christian missionaries. Is that the main story of how ASL spread to other countries? Like why does Canada use ASL?
1. Do you know the signs for ‘I love you’ in other languages? I have found 20 so far - [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iwef74-iII]I Love You in 20 Sign Languages - YouTube[/ame]
2. Anyone fluent in both ASL and BSL? What, if any, are the syntax differences between ASL and British Sign Language? Wikipedia says there is 30% overlap in signs between the two; that seems wrong, it seems like it’s closer to 10%. Is that your experience too?
3. Do you know any good finger fumblers (the sign equivalent of tongue twisters)? The only one that I know is ‘good blood, bad blood’ but that’s much of a finger fumbler!
4. What’s your favorite sign? I think that ‘oversleep’ is a beautiful compound sign, and the sign for ROFL is perfect!
5. Are you a hearing people who has learned sign and now unconsciously signs to your hearing friends? How do other people react to that?
6. Have you relished or struggled with the Deaf norms? For instance, I love how Deaf people on the whole are jokier than hearing people.
7. Has anyone pretended to be Deafer than they are? I’ve heard people doing this to get out of speeding tickets.
8. Does anyone have the same experience as me, suspecting that you think slower than a hearing person with the same intelligence as you. I don’t know how to test this but I have the inkling that it’s harder for me to form my thoughts than for an otherwise similar hearing person. [There is some research, at the least, that suggests that us Deaf have slightly worse short term memory than the hearing.]
9. What are surprising benefits of being Deaf? Recently, for instance, somebody told me that being Deaf helped them to learn a new language. How? They are already trained to: pay attention; and be okay with making mistakes and embarrassing themselves.
10. What are the challenges currently facing the Deaf Power movement? How do we best change a widespread deferral amongst the Deaf to the hearing and the authorities?
11. What signs do you often confuse? Like I know that brown and beer have the same sign (and the middle finger means brother in Taiwan!).
12. Do sign languages across the world have a similar grammar? I was reading about ASL grammar and that question words – who, what, why, when, why – are generally placed at the end of a sentence (unless it’s a short sentence, in which case it doesn’t matter) because then you can make a question face at the end of what you say. If you said these question words at the start of the sentence then you would have to make and hold a question face from the start of what you say – which would be like a hearing person using the tone of voice to indicate a question for a whole sentence. Difficult. This suggests a good reason why question words would be at the end of questions in all sign languages. Is that right? Are there other grammatical similarities?
13. I read a book with rhyming signs – signs with the same classifiers – such as date and divorce, or together and act. Are rhyming songs a thing in ASL? I’ve never seen any and would love to!
14. Are there still any politically incorrect signs? I know we used to sign China using slit-eyed motion, but now we use their sign for China (although other countries continue to use the sign ‘dirty’ to refer to America!). For instance, my hearing friends think that having the male signs, father, brother etc, at the head and the female signs, aunt, grandmother etc, at the mouth is sexist. Is there any reaction to this?
15. Is the cued speech between English and Portuguese similar? I want to use it to learn Portuguese.
16. Do anyone of you automatically pretend to understand what people say even though you are now comfortable with telling people that you don’t understand? This seems like a deeply entrenched habit for me and I’m wondering how to break it.
17. How was ASL spread across the world? For Nigeria I’m guessing that it was brought over by Christian missionaries. Is that the main story of how ASL spread to other countries? Like why does Canada use ASL?
