PSL - People Sign Language

[Bebonang]

I don't think I like the PSL very well. I think they are probably trying to come up with the universal sign language unless they already have universal sign language. Like for example, if we want to travel to Europe or Africa or Asia, we might communicate with people who don't know written English and ASL. Beside PSL sounds like sexist and I don't like the idea of using that kind of language. As long as I live in both Canada and United States instead of going aboard, I am happy to stick with ASL. Yeah, we have some changes made in ASL not many but a few new words or changes sign words. I don't understand. So I pass, too.

 

[kipourgos]

Why do people keep trying to reinvent the wheel? No one is trying to reinvent oral language....why do they attempt it with signed langauge? I just don't get it.

Actually, people try to reinvent oral language all the time! People go into tizzies about whether one should say "who" or "whom," "me" or "I," "gay" or "queer," "black" or "colored" or "negro" or African American."

They have written artificial "universal languages" such as Esperanto, Interlingua, Ido and (my personal favorite) "Volapük." The fact that the word "Volapük" is now used in Scandinavian languages to mean "nonsense" gives an idea of how successful it has been.

People have also tried to reinvent their languages for political reasons. When Greece got its independence from the Ottoman Empire, language purists tried to rid the language of all its Turkish loanwords. It didn't work - when you want to buy shoes in Greece, you go to the "papoutsidiko" (< turkish "pabuç" - shoe), nobody ever used the official new word "ypodhimatopoleion." (Would you? ) Turkey went even further - they changed their entire alphabet and banned huge lists of Arabic and Persian-based words. Today nobody can read or understand anything written before 1927 without special stud"y. A very powerful tool in the hands of a state interested in controlling access to information. The poor Uighurs had their alphabet changed three times in 50 years!

 

[kipourgos]

Jillio and Shel are spot on about audism being a prime factor in wanting to make ASL fit the "needs" of the hearing.

Another factor is the urge to change what is established solely because it's established. It happens to spoken English to legitimize laziness. Hey, if we make ain't a word, then we ain't ignorant, they is. It happens in written English. if every1 dont rite capitols n punctuation n spells "alot" like this than we r write n they r wrong,,,no watt i mean

An important thing about language is that it changes constantly, there are always things becoming established, and falling out of favor. Grammatical gender (masculine and feminine nouns) disappeared from English about 800 years ago, while subjunctive is just now going the way of the dodo. While there have always been levels of language reflecting education and social class, the idea of "one correct English" is actually a fairly new, hardly 150 years old in fact, and we're just beginning to see the consequences. "Ain't" was once perfectly acceptable English - it was the contraction of "am not." It makes perfect sense phonetically, but the proscriptive grammarians got into a tizzy about how it was written - "there is no 'ai not' so how on earth could we take out one letter and get 'ain't'?" So when the standard was invented, people who used the non-standard were immediately branded as "ignorant." Unfortunately that's human nature. "Aks" is actully an older form than "ask," but because it's mostly used by black people, it's "marked." The problem is not the word, it's the attitudes.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that a standard is a bad thing. I first learned the Turkish Sign alphabet from someone from E. Turkey. If I make my "E" or "G" that way, Istanbul people say "oh, you bumpkin!" And it seems lots of Istanbul deaf folks have a hard time understanding people from Izmir or Ankara. Being able to understand each other is good. But you can bet that when a standard emerges, people who were perfectly equal before will suddenly be looked upon as ignorant.

 

[deafskeptic]

I find it hard to believe that subjunctives in the English language is going the way of the dodo as it's hard for me to imagine the English language without them.

I can't imagine people not saying things like "If he were to become terminally ill, who would replace him?" Other examples: "Yesterday I asked that the papers be turned in; why weren't they turned in?" "Come friday, I'm driving straight to the beach."