not deaf, but would like to talk to some who are :)

[brennaxxboom]

It is great that you are interested in the deaf people but I wonder why your family just started taking sign language and your aunt is HOH for (I assume) years. Why now? Just curious. (like you!)

my aunt is actually just starting to go deaf, so we started taking classes as soon as we found out. she uses hearing aids, but it doesn't help at all, and she's a great lip reader.

 

[mshel]

Hello, I have a question for you...What about not being able to hear do you find so interesting? Which type of hearing loss are you referring to...mild, mod, severe, profound, total, born with or losing it while older? Don't get me wrong, while I totally appreciate your enthusiasm for deaf people and the culture, you do have to consider that there are many different situations and everyone's limitation is different. So you stated that your aunt is now going deaf and hearing aids don't help, why did it take this long for her or family to notice? Society behaves like Hearing loss is an invisible disability. No one with hearing chooses to be deaf and they deny they have a loss until others say they are "stupid, rude, or just ignoring" others. There are deaf police, deaf doctors, I am a deaf registerd nurse, there are deaf teachers, the list goes on..... (sorry to anyone for not mentioning their career). In order to fully appreciate people who just happen to be deaf, please take the time to find out more about each individual's personal story and situation. Always keep learning with an open mind and attitude and never pity.
Thanks for letting me vent

hi everyone
my name is brenna, i'm 17 years old and i live in pennsylvania.
i'm going to college next year for deaf education and studies and i'm so excited. my aunt is HOH and just recently my family started taking sign language lessons to help. so i know a little bit of sign. would anyone like to talk to me? i find it so interesting to be deaf, it's amazing.

 

[Berry]

Actually, it's not the same thing--not exactly anyway. Perhaps what you mean to say is that both the signs and gestures being made on the hand of a deaf person is just as capable and linguistically potent as the verbal words and sentences coming from the hearing person's voice box. So the two are both languages, absolutely, and can be used to express the same idea, but not necessarily in exactly the same way. Language is, at a base level, made up two things: the signifier and the signified. The signifier is the word, and the signified is the meaning attributed to that word. While we can easily correlate signifiers in one language to that in another, it is often difficult to correlate, exactly, what is signified between the two. For example, the word "cool" in English can be used to express the temperature of something, or it can be used to describe a particular attribute (that man is totally cool!). But when we say cool in the second instance, it implies so much more than just one thing. How do we even define what is "cool?" Who/what can be cool? a person, a building, a memory, something that somebody said earlier in the day? And what makes it cool? "Cool" is something created by a general consensus of the English speaking linguistic community. In another language, there may be a word similarly used like cool, but it will never express exactly what native English speakers have come associate with the word cool. Does this make sense?

So, ASL is not a visual equivalent of English; it is its own language entirely, and while it has obviously been influenced by English (what language has not been influenced by another?) when translating between the two, meaning is inevitably lost (you've heard the phrase "lost in translation" I'm sure). Keep this in mind as you continue to learn ASL. Try not to think of signs as words in English, but rather as signifiers with their own unique signified meaning. It takes time at first, but once you do, you will begin to learn so much more quickly!

It's so great that you're interested in ASL and deafness. Best of luck to you and your family as you embark on this adventure!

I speak quite a bit of Spanish, not as much as I used to because I don't use it as much, but I like to use it to explain translation is, in many cases, almost impossible.

In English you say, "I like the flowers." I, the subject of the sentence, feel a certain way about the flowers, which are the object of my feelings.

In Spanish you say, "Me gusta las flores." Here the flowers are the subject of the sentence, and they please me. Not exactly the same meaning here. This is why some people consider English an egotistical language compared to Spanish.

In ASL you point to the flowers and sign "pretty." The concept of "I" or "me" and whether they please you or you like them is left out of the sentence entirely.

Basically all you can translate in any situation is:

Say what an English speaker would say,

Say what a Spanish speaker would say,

Sign what an ASL signer would sign,

in that situation.

But to me the differences themselves are totally fascinating!