So Many Different Signs for One Word.

AquaBlue

AquaBlue

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Whys is that one particular word has different signs? For example I own many books, videos and DVDs on the subject of ASL and sometimes I find a word that illustrates the sign while another dictionary shows a totally different one. How do I know which is the most commonly used sign between the two (sometime three) signs?

Thank you.
 
AquaBlue said:
Whys is that one particular word has different signs?
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AB, ASL is no different than any other language on earth. They all have different words to say the same thing.

While ASL isn't based on English grammar, its signs are based on English words, and the history of English has causes it to assimilate many languages until it has more words than any other tongue on earth.

Until fairly recently, deaf people were more or less isolated into smaller groups, and those groups develop their own styles of sign, just like folks in Tea Neck, New Jersey, develop their own speech patterns which are different from people in Bastrop, Louisiana, which are different from those in Spokane, Washingtin.

I hope this helps answer some of your concerns.
 
AquaBlue said:
So different regions have different signs?
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It's not that simple. Some signs may be different, some may not. A deaf person across town from me may use a different sign to ask to use a washroom. He may sign "toilet" while I sign "restroom."

I felt the same frustration you feel when I was learning German. Spelling was wonderful, but all the many genative and dative cases in grammar nearly drove me crazy, because English rarely uses them. I wanted it to be simple, damn it!

Languages really resist neat pigeon holes.
 
By the way, how do you sign the word Internet? I can't find that sign anywhere too.
 
AquaBlue said:
So different regions have different signs?
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Yes. There sre some regional signs. You can say that ASL has a dialect just like spoken English.

I think it's cool that there are many signs for one word like....Happy Birthday! :giggle:
 
Internet

My sister (who knows everything, just ask her) says one way to sign "internet" is open hands in front of you touching middle fingers several times while moving hands in a horizontal circle.
 
AquaBlue said:
By the way, how do you sign the word Internet? I can't find that sign anywhere too.
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The hand shapes are positioned like signing "CONTACT" but the movement is different. Instead of touching the two middle fingertips together, alternate them back forth. Indicates the information going back and forth.
 
Chase said:
My sister (who knows everything, just ask her) says one way to sign "internet" is open hands in front of you touching middle fingers several times while moving hands in a horizontal circle.
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That's similar to our sign in SC. The movement is just a little different. We use the back and forth direction for "INTERNET". We use the circular movement for "NETWORK", that is, many different people (or computers) interconnected.
 
Chase said:
It's not that simple. Some signs may be different, some may not. A deaf person across town from me may use a different sign to ask to use a washroom. He may sign "toilet" while I sign "restroom."
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Right. It's not just regional differences but also differences in register, age, sex, and race. Same differences in language that hearing people experience with their spoken languages! :P
 
Hi, I felt that I wanted to say something about the different ways of signing one word.

I see that alot too, some is about location of where you learned it like some of the previous post already implies. But I also believe that sometimes it depends on the enunciation, much like how hearing people may change the way the speak on specific words, sometimes they are doing it to elaborate something or another.

One reason that I learned of why signs are so varied for something, is because it is not NATIONALLY TELEVISED. My GrandFather-in-law, had mentioned back in the days well before Television, that when you travel from one town to another or a different state, then you would hear variations of the same word.

I think that is what we face here.

Since we already have network channels dedicated to Black people, Bible folks, Music folks, Rappers, Spanish and all that.

Why don't we have an ALL DEAF channel, they can have Open-Caption on it. I guess it would be funny to be telling the person sitting next to you to turn up the sound. But I digress.

Well, that's my two cents. And of course it is my First Post.
 
All that information is vital and very interesting. Thank you.

Welcome to the forum dcraker!
 
AquaBlue said:
Whys is that one particular word has different signs? For example I own many books, videos and DVDs on the subject of ASL and sometimes I find a word that illustrates the sign while another dictionary shows a totally different one. How do I know which is the most commonly used sign between the two (sometime three) signs?

Thank you.
Click to expand...

Some are synonyms and some are variants. You see, this is what happens when you try an learn asl out of books and not from the deaf or with an instructor. By the way, local signs are signs that typically are signed only locally and you never see them in dictionaries. They are valid and a part of the language but they are signs for things locally. Like for example, the city I live in, the sign for that, a deaf person in another state would not know the sign for it. Its a small city I live in and the sign represents something only familar to people who reside in the town or have resided in the town.
 
Have you seen the ASL story based on the different ways to sign the english "run" it's awesome ... I can't remember how it goes, but I think there's somewhere between 8-12 different ASL signs for the english "run"
 
there is also context.


I "love" you

i "love" the mets

I "love" dogs

are all signed different because they have different meanings.
 
Some words have multiple signs to express the level of that word.

For instance, the word laugh has a few... to represent a small chuckle, a giggle, a laugh, a louder laugh, and a hilarious 'LOL' laugh.

The same goes for multiple words for one sign. That's where the problem sometimes happens because some deaf people who are vocabulary-limited will misunderstand one sign for another. I've had to help a few people with that. One guy knew grammar enough to know when a sign didn't make sense. So, he would ask me... "Hey, someone said... 'Blah blah blah BLAH blah blah.' When he said that 'BLAH', I know it as this word but it doesn't make sense in that sentence. What does that sign also mean?"
 
Here's another example - the signs for accident. I know two signs for it and I will use either one of them depending on the context. If I hear a horrific car crash just outside my apt, I will use this sign that uses two thumbs up and fists and then bring together both fists and hit them..

Now if I were to try to reach up to the dish in my self and as I strain to get the dish, I knock it off the shelf and it fell and broke, I'd use this sign that has four fingers together and thumb extended and then slide my hand past my mouth and along my jaw and say Opps that was a accident. I didn't mean to break it.

I remember once a dad who is Deaf (whole family is Deaf) and he showed me how the family signed porch. His daugther just fingerspelled porch while mom signed porch with a bent letter v and moved it from wrist to elbow. Dad signed it in the reverse. I found that very interesting I'm a sucker for anything that's language related.

It's like how hearing pronounce words.. For example, my little sister pronouces the word yeah this way: yeh? My great aunts would pronounce it this way: Yee-aah? So do I. My mother just says yes.
 
Yeah ... sometimes the multiple ways are due to a difference in meaning:

Run (run to the store, run in a stocking, run slang for intestinal issue, run as in election, run as in water, run as in jog ...)

fall ( fall down/fall in love, fall for, fall aka autumn)

and then there's just variation in language ... due to subtle meaning shifts ...
the way we sign "love" (4 ways that I can think of)
or "Friend" (depending on how close they are)

and then casual variation
I happen to know 4 signs for battery , 2 for office, 2 for lunch & dinner, 2 for deaf ( the usual way, and the way IKJ signs it) etc

sometimes the variations are loaded (signed differently for a purpose) such as RUN, LOVE, FALL, etc.

and sometimes random - I sign lunch EAT+NOON , or "L" tapping my mouth area 2x - one is canadian, the other is what I learned in the USA - there's no reason I switch back an forth, I just do
 
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