Loan signs for nicknames?

C

Cooter

New Member
Joined
Jan 24, 2009
Messages
11
Reaction score
0
I am new to this site, and to ASL. My friend works with a HoH person, she says people sometimes incorporate names with signs. For example, her name is Jen and she likes to sing, so the HoH person signs sing with a 'J.' Is this common amongst the deaf community?

P.S. I appologize if that is not a loan sign by definition. Like I said, I am new to ASL.
 
Cooter said:
I am new to this site, and to ASL. My friend works with a HoH person, she says people sometimes incorporate names with signs. For example, her name is Jen and she likes to sing, so the HoH person signs sing with a 'J.' Is this common amongst the deaf community?

P.S. I appologize if that is not a loan sign by definition. Like I said, I am new to ASL.
Click to expand...

No not really.

Apparently Jen likes to sing- so therefore her name sign is the letter 'J' + sing.

As long as she got the sign by another deaf individual in the Deaf community.

It's a cultural no-no if you came up with a name sign for yourself that wasn't given to you by a deaf person.
 
Thanks for the response.

You said it's 'a cultural no-no to make a sign for yourself that wasn't given by a deaf person.' Why is that so? It seems you're implying that Deaf people have "authority" to create signs, where hearing people don't. Is this a generally accepted rule amongst the Deaf community?
 
Cooter said:
Thanks for the response.

You said it's 'a cultural no-no to make a sign for yourself that wasn't given by a deaf person.' Why is that so? It seems you're implying that Deaf people have "authority" to create signs, where hearing people don't. Is this a generally accepted rule amongst the Deaf community?
Click to expand...

More like making sure that the sign name is okay. What if you came up with a sign name for yourself that is almost embarrassing? That is not a sign name you would want to be stuck with.
 
Oh

Thank you for clearing that up. I could see myself accidentaly insulting someone or embarrassing myself with a sign I made up. :D
 
A hearing woman created her name sign and it was the letter 'B' up to her lower face.

When she introduced herself, she mentioned that this was her name sign and showed us.

I was :shock: and asked her,' Who gave it to you?' She said that she came up with it herself and liked it. I told her that was a cultural no-no but she wad adamant in keeping it.

I told her that the sign literally means "bit**".

She was horrified!

Needless to say--that name sign was changed to something more suitable for her.
 
Back
Top