Petition against "dirty signs" book publishing

[TXgolfer]

This really burns me. Deaf people DO own ASL; it is their language! People who speak English do get agitated when people botch the English language (foreigners, for example). Think about Grammar Nazis. Think about how many comedy routines revolve around fake accents with botched English pronunciation. People are very proud of their respective languages; remember it is the language through which you learn about the world, your life, your culture, even yourself. Your own thoughts are communicated via your language.

English is a bad analogy, because it has truly become the language of the Internet and a lingua franca. So many people know English that we can't really stake a claim on it. I would think a better, more effective analogy might be the Native American languages that are and have been dying out. As someone of Native American ancestry, I know that only a few people really know the language. I would be offended and appalled if someone came in, learned a few choice words and decided that they would publish a book on that.

Remember that the Deaf world has often been oppressed. The language of ASL was often the only thing Deaf people really had a say over on their lives; it was and still is their language. I still feel that as a hearing person, I am not allowed to create signs. I can engage in dialogue regarding signs and specific sign choices and what could be more appropriate in a specific situation, but at the end of the day, I match my Deaf consumer and honor and respect them enough to be guardians and creators of the language. It's their language!!!!

Ziva botches English every week on NCIS..... Never heard anyone complain about it.

And Native American languages....yeah nobody ever botches those, Kimosabe. Hau!

 

[kokonut]

Ziva botches English every week on NCIS..... Never heard anyone complain about it.

And Native American languages....yeah nobody ever botches those, Kimosabe. Hau!

Well, many deaf Indians had their own sign language but were forced to learn ASL.

A few years back I did a blog how one kind of American Indian Sign Language (ISL) used by deaf native American Indians was already vanishing (or it may have vanished by now) because, ironically so, young deaf Native American Indians were forced to use or in this case had no recourse but to communicate in ASL at deaf residential schools they were sent to. And by doing so they gradually lost an important identity and Indian heritage when Indian Sign Language was passed on down through generations. A sign language that was used by both deaf and hearing Indians within their own community or tribe. This disappearance was an unplanned but systematic move over time by a predominately white Deaf culture and community where ASL gradually overtook their ISL preferences even though historically many of the signs in ASL today were derived from or have similar signs seen in Native American ISL.

Below is a passage on how ASL (supposedly the 3rd or 4th most popular language in the U.S. - a highly dubious claim.), English (number one language in the U.S.), and American Deaf culture have helped erode the Keresan Pueblo Indian Sign Language (KPISL) in New Mexico into extinction already. A native Indian sign language used by both deaf and hearing Keresan Pueblo indians.

KPISL is not much used among the pueblo’s younger generation owing to their learning school English, ASL, or signs that follow the spoken English word order. Before the 1990s, American Indian Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing tribal members usually left home to attend a residential school for the deaf located far away. At the school, there was usually no formal instruction of American Indian or American Indian culture and signs; only Deaf culture and ASL were taught, leading many American Indian students to join the “Deaf World.” After graduation, the students had to make difficult decisions about where and how to establish themselves: on the pueblos with hearing families and friends, in urban areas with other Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing people, or in border towns with limited access to both groups.

English has now become the dominant language for many Pueblo Indians. Its use, as well as continued contact with and influences of the dominant culture, has served to erode some of the traditions and values of the Pueblo Indian culture. As a result, KPISL, a valuable piece of American Indian heritage, may be slipping into extinction as well.

Kokonut Pundit: The Eugenics of Deaf Indian Sign Language and culture through ASL?

Kokonut Pundit: ASL is Destroying Indian Sign Language?

We know that the native American Indian tribes and their culture throughout the U.S. were essentially but systematically "eliminated" in favor of having them integrate into a predominately white culture and English language. By the same token we see the same eery but ironic similarity when the eradication of the Keresan Pueblo Indian Sign Language was done with the help of a predominantly white Deaf culture in favor of ASL. Talk about the "oppressed" oppressing the most oppressed deaf culture there is with its own sign language forced to abandon it by deaf and hearing cultures.

 

[KarissaMann05]

Oh boy. Now, we are "evil Whites" who stole ISL from Indians, so we all are the responsible for their dying languages.

:roll:

What a bullshit. Do you realize it is mainly because of governments' doings, not the Deaf community? I mean, look at America History.

No, you know what? Never mind. It is our fault, all right. If that is what you feel so better about it, so whatever. :roll:

Good riddance.

 

[TXgolfer]

Oh boy. Now, we are "evil Whites" who stole ISL from Indians, so we all are the responsible for their dying languages.

:roll:

What a bullshit. Do you realize it is mainly because of governments' doings, not the Deaf community? I mean, look at America History.

No, you know what? Never mind. It is our fault, all right. If that is what you feel so better about it, so whatever. :roll:

Good riddance.

No, the point is.....people misspeak and and misuse languages all the time....sometimes they even parody languages. Just look at the way the Go Go Gophers cartoon or F Troop made fun of Indians....or even Mel Brooks in Blazzin Saddles.

Point is it happens to everyone....no need to get so upset.

 

[Bebonang]

I don't think we, Native Americans - hearing and deaf, don't own native sign language. But with many dialects of different native languages that we were depending on signing to be able to communicate when trading or trying to understand them to make peace. As for the Deaf Native Americans, we need sign language to help us understand more clearly than spoken languages. It is important to have sign language whether in Indian Sign Language or ASL.

Right now it is already combined with the French sign language to some of the Native sign language. So now it is universal like from West coast to East coast, United States and Canada including some in Central America. I don't know about Mexico but they have their own sign language to communicate. Don't ever mock our sign language whether Natives use sign language just because they never botches.

The white people took away from our spoken native languages that we tried to keep in our tradition. The whites changed all that for us. So this is the reason why hearing Natives had to be forced to speak English just like the Deaf people have been forced to speak spoken English. Now our Indian sign language is almost completely gone because of that and ASL have been trying to be eliminated by the Alexander Graham Bell so that we can lipread and speak like normal people. Ha! What a laugh that it is really us be oppressed that has tormented us trying to understand in the hearing world. That is why we need ASL between white people and people of colors so that we can communicate each other. Times have changed and there is no way to go back the way it was before. If you can find a book on Indian sign language, then that is good but you probably will not be interest in it anymore.

 

[Bebonang]

No, the point is.....people misspeak and and misuse languages all the time....sometimes they even parody languages. Just look at the way the Go Go Gophers cartoon or F Troop made fun of Indians....or even Mel Brooks in Blazzin Saddles.

Point is it happens to everyone....no need to get so upset.

Most movies and television series like the F Troop gave us a bad names that we are savages and dumb like as if we were children. They misconceived us what we were like that back then. The way hearing natives spoke were talking in their dialects and the whites mock them over their speaking languages. Many of us can not speak like the whites do. This is the way we speak in our native languages. Dialects did that the way we spoke.

A lot of white hearing people don't understand why the hearing natives can not talk like them. As for the Deaf native people, that was bad enough to try to make our speech come out like white people especially white d/Deaf people had a hard time to pronounce the words. So get lost, TXgolfer! :roll:

 

[kokonut]

Oh boy. Now, we are "evil Whites" who stole ISL from Indians, so we all are the responsible for their dying languages.

:roll:

What a bullshit. Do you realize it is mainly because of governments' doings, not the Deaf community? I mean, look at America History.

No, you know what? Never mind. It is our fault, all right. If that is what you feel so better about it, so whatever. :roll:

Good riddance.

How come Deaf schools at the time never bothered to help ensure that these Deaf Indians preserve their ISL and encourage the continued use of it by keeping in contact with their tribes and elders on maintaining their ISL identity? Sure, govt played a role. A big one but while they were over at the schools they never gotten any support to ensure that their ISL and culture continue to thrive. In fact, the problem was they were forced to choose between ISL and ASL. Kind of ironic considering people were screaming how ASL is becoming extinct but take a blind eye on what happened to some of the deaf Indians own ISL that have virtually disappeared.

 

[Bebonang]

How come Deaf schools at the time never bothered to help ensure that these Deaf Indians preserve their ISL and encourage the continued use of it by keeping in contact with their tribes and elders on maintaining their ISL identity? Sure, govt played a role. A big one but while they were over at the schools they never gotten any support to ensure that their ISL and culture continue to thrive. In fact, the problem was they were forced to choose between ISL and ASL. Kind of ironic considering people were screaming how ASL is becoming extinct but take a blind eye on what happened to some of the deaf Indians own ISL that have virtually disappeared.

:roll:

 

[KarissaMann05]

No, the point is.....people misspeak and and misuse languages all the time....sometimes they even parody languages. Just look at the way the Go Go Gophers cartoon or F Troop made fun of Indians....or even Mel Brooks in Blazzin Saddles.

Point is it happens to everyone....no need to get so upset.

No, what you said is meaningless. His question, "ASL is Destroying Indian Sign Language?", is a joke. ASL don't destroy their sign languages. Do you realize ASL was created by two hearing and Deaf men to help white (and some non-Indian non-whites) Deaf children? Also, another white men didn't want to use Indian Sign Languages to teach children because they still had their old-fashioned thinking of white superiority.

 

[Jiro]

How come Deaf schools at the time never bothered to help ensure that these Deaf Indians preserve their ISL and encourage the continued use of it by keeping in contact with their tribes and elders on maintaining their ISL identity? Sure, govt played a role. A big one but while they were over at the schools they never gotten any support to ensure that their ISL and culture continue to thrive. In fact, the problem was they were forced to choose between ISL and ASL. Kind of ironic considering people were screaming how ASL is becoming extinct but take a blind eye on what happened to some of the deaf Indians own ISL that have virtually disappeared.

why should they? most, if not all, deaf schools are on US government property. if deaf Indians want to preserve their ISL, then they'll need to build deaf schools on their reservation land.

 

[TXgolfer]

Most movies and television series like the F Troop gave us a bad names that we are savages and dumb like as if we were children. They misconceived us what we were like that back then. The way hearing natives spoke were talking in their dialects and the whites mock them over their speaking languages. Many of us can not speak like the whites do. This is the way we speak in our native languages. Dialects did that the way we spoke.

A lot of white hearing people don't understand why the hearing natives can not talk like them. As for the Deaf native people, that was bad enough to try to make our speech come out like white people especially white d/Deaf people had a hard time to pronounce the words. So get lost, TXgolfer! :roll:

I am saying the same thing you are......

 

[Jiro]

No, the point is.....people misspeak and and misuse languages all the time....sometimes they even parody languages. Just look at the way the Go Go Gophers cartoon or F Troop made fun of Indians....or even Mel Brooks in Blazzin Saddles.

Point is it happens to everyone....no need to get so upset.

we're not upset. we're just asserting our opinions by expressing our distaste toward it. sounds like you're attempting to invalidate our opinions.

 

[KarissaMann05]

How come Deaf schools at the time never bothered to help ensure that these Deaf Indians preserve their ISL and encourage the continued use of it by keeping in contact with their tribes and elders on maintaining their ISL identity? Sure, govt played a role. A big one but while they were over at the schools they never gotten any support to ensure that their ISL and culture continue to thrive. In fact, the problem was they were forced to choose between ISL and ASL. Kind of ironic considering people were screaming how ASL is becoming extinct but take a blind eye on what happened to some of the deaf Indians own ISL that have virtually disappeared.

Again, it was because of whites don't want Indian Sign Languages... I am sure Indians and Deaf non-Indians would love to exchange, but it didn't happen because of the white superiority.

 

[KarissaMann05]

why should they? most, if not all, deaf schools are on US government property. if deaf Indians want to preserve their ISL, then they'll need to build deaf schools on their reservation land.

Exactly. Which is really sad...

 

[TXgolfer]

No, what you said is meaningless. His question, "ASL is Destroying Indian Sign Language?", is a joke. ASL don't destroy their sign languages. Do you realize ASL was created by two hearing and Deaf men to help white (and some non-Indian non-whites) Deaf children? Also, another white men didn't want to use Indian Sign Languages to teach children because they still had their old-fashioned thinking of white superiority.

I wasn't referring to Koko's point.....but rather the point in general. Indians's get parodied as do orientals, Spanish speakers, Jamacans,surfers, people from NY, people from Boston, people from Savaannah, people from Louisiana....even people from Texas. Its common. Check on the old Benny Hill show sometime. That was my point.

 

[Smithtr]

I am curious Indian Sign Language? I never heard it Indian Sign language not available on country? hmm! I find out!

 

[TXgolfer]

we're not upset. we're just asserting our opinions by expressing our distaste toward it. sounds like you're attempting to invalidate our opinions.

You may not be.....others have said otherwise. However, as always you are entitled to your opinion.

 

[Bebonang]

why should they? most, if not all, deaf schools are on US government property. if deaf Indians want to preserve their ISL, then they'll need to build deaf schools on their reservation land.

Oh, Jiro, that would be a wonderful idea to get our ISL back again. But for that it is all a dream. No chance of getting that. **sigh** Wish it could happen right on the reservation or First Nation Reserve. I am dreaming now.

 

[Jiro]

You may not be.....others have said otherwise. However, as always you are entitled to your opinion.

good. now remember what you just said.

and as for you - you are entitled to your opinion as well but we're also wondering why aren't you expressing your opinion by expressing your distaste toward it.

oh well. as always.. you're entitled to being apathetic about it.

 

[TXgolfer]

good. now remember what you just said.

and as for you - you are entitled to your opinion as well but we're also wondering why aren't you expressing your opinion by expressing your distaste toward it.

oh well. as always.. you're entitled to being apathetic about it.

Exactly..... We all get to pick our battles