Signing isn't the Deaf "language"?

The limit of your knowledge is the limit of your language.
 
No wonder the Late Deafened woman don't know anything about us, Deaf people. We have to use our ASL or sign language to communicate to be able to understand. Don't worry about speech. To us, it is still a language for us to communicate. Every culture had different languages. Why do white people banished us to not to speak our native tongue but preferred us to speak English? They are more comfortable in their comfort zone. So they made us suffer to use their language instead of our language. In the mainstream school, we had to suffered trying to understand in the classroom when we were not allowed to have sign language. They forced us to speak their own language, not ours. Well, it is the same with native children who had to put up with them. No one should ever take our languages away from us when we like to speak our language because we are comfortable to communicate.

My husband spoke Ojibwe, but he mix some English words into his language Ojibwe. He loves his Ojibwe language and no one should take it away from him. He was happy in his own language and for me I am happy to sign in my own language (ASL). Forget about what that woman to you. :roll:
 
No one should treat sign language differently in a bad way. That was not my point. My friend (well, she is not really a "friend"; she is a lady who brings her pets to the vet clinic where I volunteer), anyway this lady is late-deaf and she believes ASL is not a language but instead is a different method of communication.
She is a customer.

Ok, I don't think I want to get into any more discussions with her about it because it makes my head spin.
:lol:
 
"Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication." Wiki

With that said ASL is definitely a language, it is a complex system used by humans to communicate.
 
No wonder the Late Deafened woman don't know anything about us, Deaf people. We have to use our ASL or sign language to communicate to be able to understand. Don't worry about speech. To us, it is still a language for us to communicate. Every culture had different languages. Why do white people banished us to not to speak our native tongue but preferred us to speak English? They are more comfortable in their comfort zone. So they made us suffer to use their language instead of our language. In the mainstream school, we had to suffered trying to understand in the classroom when we were not allowed to have sign language. They forced us to speak their own language, not ours. Well, it is the same with native children who had to put up with them. No one should ever take our languages away from us when we like to speak our language because we are comfortable to communicate.

My husband spoke Ojibwe, but he mix some English words into his language Ojibwe. He loves his Ojibwe language and no one should take it away from him. He was happy in his own language and for me I am happy to sign in my own language (ASL). Forget about what that woman to you. :roll:

This is very beautiful,
but I am afraid you completely missed the point.

The lady merely disputed a point of using the word "language" pertaining to the use of hand and gestures
because of the essential meaning of this word - as in, because of the very nature of the word = a TONGUE.

she wasn't denying you the use of SIGN language.

I agree however, that either way, her remark was pointless and invalid, too, since as we can see, she wasn't well educated anyway.


Fuzzy
 
Deaf friend really got me thinking. When you say "language", it means spoken words. Signing isn't a "language" because it isn't spoken words, it's a totally different way of communicating.

I agree with her, but I also think it doesn't matter since it's accepted that Signing is called a language even if it isn't technically a language.

Just wanted to see if this bothered anyone else like it bothers her. Thank you.

My two cents: ASL qualifies as a true and independent language because it meets all the fundamental elements for a complete language - it has its own unique syntax, complex grammar structure, and vocabulary for expressing ideas. It has different dialects and accents. Viewing language as meaning verbal words is a kind of outdated way of looking at it. Linguistic researchers have been fighting that mindset for quite some time now, and ASL is now recognized as a complete language almost everywhere.

I find it interesting that your friend/person you know is bothered by ASL being called a language. In my experience, the opposite tends to be true... the Deaf people I talk to (and myself) are offended by people trying to argue that it's NOT its own language... just english, in gesture form.
 
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