Trilingualism

katz4life

katz4life

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Is anybody here using a trilingual? Yes, I am trilingual in SEE, PSE, and ASL.
 
lol. I'm bilingual - English & ASL (well more like PSE maybe???).

I know Spanish but not fluent in it. I can read Korean language but I don't know what it means. But those languages don't count as my trilingual since I'm not fluent in it. But is this thread limited to only sign language?
 
I know English (obviously), some ASL, some PSE, some Spanish, some German. Not enough Spanish or German to have a conversation.
 
Wirelessly posted

English, ASL, some French, some German. A bit of Japanese. Enough Latin/Greek to understand legal terms and taxonomy.

In order of most confident to least.
 
SEE is not a language.

ASL and English are.

I am not trilingual.
 
Jiro said:
But is this thread limited to only sign language?
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No, not necessarily.
I know some basic in written German. It's kind of hard to find German or Deutsch Sign Language book/DVD that I would like to learn some. I did try to check the bookstore at Galladuet a few years ago. They didn't have it I was looking for. Oh, well.
 
shel90 said:
SEE is not a language.

ASL and English are.
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Okay, if SEE is not a language then what kind of sign language I was growing up in a local Hearing impaired school and family household? It was either SEE or PSE, or both. I learned ASL after graduating from High School.
 
Douglas said:
Okay, if SEE is not a language then what kind of sign language I was growing up in a local Hearing impaired school and family household? It was either SEE or PSE, or both. I learned ASL after graduating from High School.
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What is SEE (Signed Exact English) by SignGenius

To code English for deaf people, signs and finger spelling were designed in the correct word order, grammar and vocabulary of the English language to imitate English language as it is used in spoken English. This design is called Signed Exact English.


To clarify:The graph below explains the same phenomena as above adding ASL and highlighting differences:

TODAY WE HAD MUCH RAIN. (correct English grammar) English
Today we had much rain. (there is a sign for each word in the sentence in the correct order) SEE
Translation of above:

Today rain much (reversed word order almost like Latin) ASL
There seems to be very little comparison between ASL and SEE and for that matter English because of the way the word order is used in the sentence in ASL, and the different word order as it is used in English speech and SEE. The majority of signs to indicate the exact word (object, subject and verb) in question are however similar for both Signing Exact English and ASL. We know there is a distinct difference in formal English pronunciation of words compared to the pronunciation of American English of the same words. In England huge differences in pronunciation exists from town to town and North and south American pronunciation has a distinct difference in accent.
 
Douglas said:
Okay, if SEE is not a language then what kind of sign language I was growing up in a local Hearing impaired school and family household? It was either SEE or PSE, or both. I learned ASL after graduating from High School.
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PSE is contact language. It's short for "Pidgin Signed English." It's not considered as a full language on its own. It's like Jamaican Patios. It's a creole language, but it's usually classified as English regardless. PSE is usually a byproduct of ASL and English being used alongside each others. Except I am not sure if PSE would fall under the umbrella of English or ASL at this point.

SEE... is not a language, it's a manually-coded version of English.
 
Whatever...I guess it's some different point of view from my deaf/hoh peers. For example, when one notices me using SEE and asks, "is that SEE you're using?". I answered yes and also use PSE and ASL. So the ones call me a trilingual user in these 3. Some of others say that I'm bi-bi as if I use only Signed English and ASL. Anyway, to correct this, to remove "PSE" and suppose I'm fluent in Deutsch Sign Language I would be considered as trilingual. Hope this makes sense.
 
Interesting. While I would not call myself fluent in Spanish I can hold down a conversation, so I guess I am trilingual.

But SEE is a conundrum. It is not a language but I think even fewer hearing people are conversant with it than with ASL so they would need an interpreter unless they wanted to write everything down.

I don't know about others but I get totally confused when someone signs SEE to me. Do some Deaf ASL users need an interpreter to communicate with a SEE user?
 
Douglas said:
Okay, if SEE is not a language then what kind of sign language I was growing up in a local Hearing impaired school and family household? It was either SEE or PSE, or both. I learned ASL after graduating from High School.
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It's a way of manually encoding English. Just like Braille is a way of tactually encoding print. Neither SEE nor Braille are languages, they are ways of making spoken English accessible to the Deaf and written English accessible to the Blind.

On the other hand, ASL is a language cause it has its own grammar and syntax. It makes use of space for grammar which shows that ASL's "home" is in the visual medium. SEE's "home" is in the spoken medium (speech), and while it is made visual for the Deaf/HH, it maintains the linear format of spoken language.
 
souggy said:
PSE is contact language. It's short for "Pidgin Signed English." It's not considered as a full language on its own. It's like Jamaican Patios. It's a creole language, but it's usually classified as English regardless. PSE is usually a byproduct of ASL and English being used alongside each others. Except I am not sure if PSE would fall under the umbrella of English or ASL at this point.

SEE... is not a language, it's a manually-coded version of English.
Click to expand...

The very first word in Pidgin Sign Language, "Pidgin," means "contact language".

pidgin |ˈpijən|
noun [often as adj. ]
a grammatically simplified form of a language, used for communication between people not sharing a common language. Pidgins have a limited vocabulary, some elements of which are taken from local languages, and are not native languages, but arise out of language contact between speakers of other languages. Compare with creole,sense 2.
• ( Pidgin) another term for Tok Pisin .
ORIGIN late 19th cent.: Chinese alteration of English business.
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Im bilingual in English and BSL. I know a little ASL but not enough
 
since you know me since we both were kiddos. I always thought we were kiddos in our old school, using PSE. right?
 
souggy said:
Wirelessly posted

Okay...

So basically you're bilingual in English and ASL.
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He never said English so maybe he is monolingual with just ASL. PSE and SEE? :confused: Those are not languages. (I know you are aware of that and I am just saying for the sake of the OP)
 
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