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 Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 2:22 pm
Hi!
This is where I'll show, or rather tell you how to sign.
I have no access to a camera on a regular basis, so video and or pictures will probably not be from me, but I will do my best to describe the sign itself.
These lessons will more so focus on grammar, than vocabulary.
Also, I will include information on deaf culture because you can't learn a language with out culture in there.
If you need an clarification on a sign, feel free to message me.
Websites I think are appropriate and recommend:
Aslpro.com a very good dictionary.
Lifeprint has lessons with pictures by picture for each sign.
Why should I learn to sign?
There are a surprising number of Deaf/ and Hard of Hearing individuals not to mention non verbal people.
You can't assume a deaf/hoh/nvp person can lip read or can talk
You can talk behind your teacher's back.
You can see farther than you can hear.
You can talk to people in other cars.
You can be yelling at your other half and no one would know the difference
You'll look super cool.
of course none of these reasons were biased. lol
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:45 pm
So what're you made of?
Every sign has about 5 different things that make it up.
What are these five things?
-hand shape
-palm orientation
-hand movement
-hand location
-non-manual features
Handshape
What ASL letter makes up the handshape?
There are many, many different handshapes but most of the stem from the letters of the alphabet and are slightly modified. (here they are from Wikipedia)
# the fist (the shape of the ASL letters A, S, T, or 10),
# the flat hand (the shape of B or 4),
# the spread (and sometimes clawed) hand (5 or E),
# the cupped hand (the C hand),
# thumb touching fingertips (as in O or M),
# a pointing index finger (as in 1, D, G, Z, or Q),
# a hooked index finger (the X hand),
# a pointing pinky finger (I or J),
# the index and middle fingers together (U, H, or N),
# the index and middle fingers apart (V or 2),
# the 'chopsticks' hand (K or P),
# the thumb and index finger apart (the L hand),
# the thumb, index, and middle finger extended (the 3 hand),
# thumb touching pinkie (6 or W),
# the 'okay' hand (thumb touching index: F or 9),
# crossed fingers (the R hand), and
# the pinkie with thumb and/or index finger, or a spread hand with bent middle finger (ILU handshape)
Palm Orientation
Towards signer
Towards receiver
Palm to the right
Palm to the left
Palm up
Palm down
Bent/Modified
Hand Movement
Up, Down, Side to side
Fingers wiggling
Brushing
Touch other body part
Entering opposite hand
Etc
Hand Location
Forehead
Chin
Torso
shoulder
Wrist
Palm
Stomach
Neck
Non-manual Feature
Facial Expression
Body Language
Mouth morpheme
Air release, inhalation
Use these to describe a sign you have a question about.
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 7:05 pm
It's Visual, Baby, Visual!
The first thing you have to learn when signing is that you're not used to a visual language.
If you've ever watched two fluent signers conversing you would have noticed that the expressions can change greatly within one sentence.
Many new signers have a problem with this, so let's address it now.
Let's take the sign for mad. (Clawed 5 hand moving upwards across face)
Now, let's say you wanted to say, "I feel mad"
You would sign, "MAD I FEEL"
While signing mad though you would make an angry facial expression. If you didn't it would be the same as speaking with out emotion.
But emotion is much more important in ASL.
The base sign is mad, but the more you squish your face and make the sign faster you would have the equivalent of "Furious".
But a better way of illustrating the importance of facial expression is "8-5" sign.
To form this sign you sign the number 8 (thumb and middle finger touching) and then flick out to the number five.
Now if you're smiling and you jump up a little this means, "AWESOME!"
But if you have a look on your face like you just drank lemon juice it means, "AWFUL!"
So if you have no facial expressions the sentence, "YOUR DRESS AWESOME LOOK-STRONG" could be "YOUR DRESS AWFUL LOOK-STRONG" depending on the receiver's bias.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another thing is when you are listening to someone look at their face!
You may think, "omg I'll never be able to see the hands if I look at their face!"
But trust me, you will. Plus, the face gives you more information than the hands most of the time.
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 7:25 pm
So, how are we arranging this?
So, as many of you noticed, ASL is not English order.
Yes, there are people who sign in English order, and yes, these tend to be hearing student who just use English on the hands.
Trust me, you will see that that becomes very awkward and can even be confusing for a deaf person.
So how do we arrange our sentences?
Simple.
TIME-TOPIC-COMMENT.
This is the easiest way to look at it.
But since ya'll are language pros it's technically
OBJECT SUBJECT VERB
This is hard core ASL.
Now, before I explain and give examples I need to explain something to you.
When you approach a deaf person and start signing they are more than likely to realize you are hearing and probably are going to address you in English order.
Now if you were in Mexico, and you addressed someone in Spanish and they replied in English would you keep going in English?
NO!
Not if you're going for fluency, so just be persistent and then they might not just think of you as just another hearing person who thinks ASL is only "Pretty English" on the hands.
On to the sentence!
The first thing you want to do is indicate the time.
Some such signs are
"NOW-NOW" (Today)
"YESTERDAY"
"BEFORE"
"PAST"
"WILL"
"FUTURE"
Then you want to set up what you want to talk about.
And then you comment on it.
Simple, no?
It makes sense, first you have to tell when something happened before you talk about what happened and you have to tell what happened before you can comment about it!
And that's a sentence in a nutshell.
Now some examples.
"YESTERDAY, SOUP GOOD I EAT."
Yesterday, I ate some good soup"
"WILL, GARBAGE I MOVE"
I will take out the garbage later.
"SCHOOL NEW I, CAFETERIA WHERE I YOU TELL?"
I'm new to this school, could you tell me where the cafeteria is?
APPLE YOU LIKE? YUCK, ORANGE I LIKE
You like apples? Ew, I like oranges
Now you try!
Please post your answers in White. <3
Translate from English to ASL
"Could you tell me where the bathroom is?"
"What school do you go to?"
"How old are you?"
"Do you know my friend Josh?"
"I like watermelon."
"I have Algebra fourth hour"
"I don't like your girlfriend"
"Are you seriously going to wear that?" Seriously= TRUE-WORK
"Could you give this to then when you see them second hour?"
ASL to English
"PIE ME LIKE"
"CAKE GOOD, PIE BETTER"
"PIE YOU PREFER WHAT?"
"CAT DOG CHASE"
"RECENT, SHOWER?"
"YOU ME LOVE, ME YOU LOVE, WE FAMILY HAPPY"
"ONE-TIME, GIRL AMISH I KNOW"
"TEACHER -point-, THIS YOU GIVE-TO?"
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 7:26 pm
I'm a noun! But you can't do anything without verbs!
ASL, lucky for you guys, does not inflect nouns or verbs in the sense of declension or conjugation, but does modify verbs and nouns to give them a slightly different meaning.
Airplane and Fly are the same sign essentially, but airplane is two short movements while Fly is one long movement. So nouns differ from verbs in the sense that they are often repeated, and verbs are not.
In addition to this you can modify fly and make it bump up and down and you move it to show that your flight was bumpy, as well as modify it other ways.
Many, many verbs you can do this for, so you're just going to have to keep an eye out for those things.
The easiest way to show tense is signing words at the beginning of the sentence like, "TODAY" "TOMORROW" "NOW" "FUTURE" "PAST" "BEFORE" etc and sign the rest of the sentence as if it was in present tense.
*THE STORY WILL STAY IN THIS TENSE UNTIL YOU INTRODUCE ANOTHER TENSE, PLEASE REMEMBER THIS*
ASL has another type of verb called directional verbs. These verbs show the subject and object within the sign.
An example, "GIVE".
To sign, "I GIVE YOU" you make the sign for give and move it from yourself to the person you're giving to.
"I GIVE HIM" Would be from yourself to your right or where the locus of the conversation is located (We'll talk about this later)
This goes for all other persons.
Some directional verbs are:
GIVE
LOOK
LEND/BORROW
CALL
SAY-NO
SUMMON
SAY/TELL
THANK
INFORM
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 7:27 pm
Don't you give me the finger!
Fingerspelling.
Now, most people, even ones who do not know any sign, know the manual alphabet, but here I'm going to help you be more ASL like with it.
First off, location is key.
The neutral area for fingerspelling is at about shoulder level.
Now, clarity is key, we will not shun you for not being able to go 500 miles an hour, but we will if you can't form the letter correctly. In other words make it clear not fast. Speed will come to you.
Do not ask us to slow down. We already can tell you're a non signer and we've probably slowed down a lot already, plus you need to learn to read fast spellers, slowing down a whole bunch is not going to help you.
Look at the speller's face! Do not look at the hand. The number on rule of ASL is never leave the face.
Read the shape of the word.
D-o-y-o-u-r-e-a-d-l-i-k-e-t-h-i-s?
No!
Fingerspelling is like reading a book in the air.
Let's talk about double letters now. There are a few ways to show a double letter combination.
-Slide the letter a little to the right and then continue spelling
-Bounce the letter to the right and continue
-Reform the letter and continue
The first two are the best way to show this combination, so I would stick
with those.
What do you fingerspell?
Most often proper nouns, some concept to which don't have signs, and signs you do not know and lexicalized words like, #BANK #JOB #BIRTH CONTROL #EMAIL
Lexicalized words are more "asl" as in they aren't fully spell but the vowels and some consonats are left out.
BNK, JB, BC, EMAL etc.
Now if any of you have watched a deaf vlog you may have noticed that signers do not always spell at the should there are ways we can inflect and show different things by moving the spelling, but typically the spelling is done near the face.
Here are some examples because there is no "rule" par se.
Let's say you were talking about a girl who was wearing a tee shirt with the college name "dartmouth" on it and you wanted to stress the fact that she's actually attending Gallaudet.
"GIRL THAT-ONE D-A-R-T-M-O-U-T-H(spell on chest of shirt while moving to the left) -negative head shake while crossing out Dartmouth- school GALLAUDET -nod- GREY BODY-STUDY LIKE MUST""
"That girl over there must really like Grey's Anatomy, she's wearing a Dartmouth tee shirt when she goes to Gallaudet."
Now you're going to talk about your friend's football playing boyfriend.
"BOY 8-7 (sign on chest) YOU HE DATE DATE or WITH-LONG-TIME?"
"NAME JON, NO-GOOD-YOU"
"SORRY, MIND-BLANK"
"The boy with the number 87 jersey, are you dating him or going steady?"
"His name is John you loser"
"Sorry, I couldn't think of his name"
Another area is the forehead.
"A-M-A-N-D-A SHE HERSELF L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E (on forehead)"
"Amanda is always thinking about language"
some other common areas are the bicep area, the lower arm and wrist.
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 7:29 pm
I'm here, but she's not!
This is going to be a short little section on the absent reference or locus I talked about earlier.
Basically, it's a spot you desginate for a person you are talking about who does not have a name sign so you don't have to keep fingerspelling there name.
To initiate this, first you must mention the person and then point to where you are putting them.
Example,
"BOOK, J-O-H-N (POINT TO RIGHT) HE-GIVE-ME FINISH."
John gave me the book.
For the rest of that conversation if either you OR the other person points to that spot that is who they are talking about.
You can have multiple references but I suggest no more than three or it gets confusing.
An Example,
"H-E-A-T-H-E-R (POINT TO RIGHT) MEAT LIKE, J-U-D-Y SIMILAR-NOT"
*NOTE* inflect the sign for SIMILAR (Y handshape) by moving it from both reference points to show who's similar.
Heather unlike Judy, likes me.
Other people can use your references also, so don't be surprised when some one goes,
"VEGETARIAN POINT TO RIGHT (JUDY)?"
Is Judy a vegetarian?
They would point to the right not left because you set up the point so they have to point to where Judy is.
Classifying Classifiers!
Have you ever had a conversation with someone and you started describing something and you look down and you're describing the shape or the size with your hands.
Classifiers are no different.
Classifiers are simply handshapes used to show:
Movement
Appearance
Location
If you know the French word mal then just think, "Without knowing classifiers my signing est tres mal!"
I don't know. sweatdrop
Anyway.
Classifiers act just like pronouns.
Can you just start saying, "So he gave it to me and then she got upset because she was dating him." And then you were expected to know that I was talking about Donna and Ron and not Harry and Linda? No.
First you must say what you're making a reference to.
That is easy.
Now, comes the fun part.
Use your imagination and describe that person, place, or thing!
Some major classifier here I will list:
CL:1 Things that are (relatively) long and skinny. A pencil, a stick, a person.
CL:A an object in a certain location. A house, a lamp.
CL:3- vehicles, [motorcycle, park a car, row of cars, accident, garage]
CL:4-[CURTAIN, Hair, stripes]
CL:5-[large group of things]
CL:B- flat things[roof, flat, wall, your sister]
CL:C-[thick things, round pole-like things, your mother]
CL:C-(index and thumb) pepperoni, cookies, campaign buttons
CL:F-Smaller round things [coins, buttons, dots]
CL:G- thin things or degree of thinness
CL:L(bent)-[large, big-headed/egoistic/conceited, check, card, square]
CL:L-[check, card, square]
CL:V- legs, a person walking-(upside-down V), two people walking, [stand, walk-to, lay down, toss-and-turn, dive, jump, skate board, scooter, get up]
CL:V (bent fingers) = a small animal, or a larger animal sitting.
CL:Y Very wide things. A fat person walking. A hippopotamus's mouth.
Now, you're probably wondering, "Great now I know all these but how the heck do I make them?"
CL simply means classifier the following number or letter indicated the handshape of it.
Because writing out classifiers would be very hard for me and hard for you to understand I found this website to help you and give you examples.
Classifiers in American Sign Language
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 7:30 pm
Don't you advance on me, darling!
Numerical incorporation
Certain signs like HOUR, DAY, YEAR, and WEEK can include numbers to indicate time.
Hour, -A one hand circling the left B hand in citation form- can take up to 10 after ten you must sign the number and then the citation form.
Now for hour with number included all you do is replace the 1 hand with the number you wish to signify.
This principal applies to all these signs.
DAY Takes up to ten.
YEAR and WEEK only take up to the number four.
Along with including the number you can indicate whether it was in the past or will be in the future. To accomplish this simply take the citation form of the sign and either:
Swing it out forwards in a small arc to indicate something in the future.
Swing to out and back towards the should to indicate something in the past.
This does not apply towards DAY or HOUR.
Eye gaze and blended space
Up till now you may have of just been staring at the person you're signing towards, but if you've watch proefficent signers you'll notice they look everywhere.
Eye gaze typically follows either:
Who you are talking to
or
What you are talking about.
An example you look at the person you are signing YOU at. If you are pointing to an absent locus spot you look at the spot. If you're talking to your friend's boyfriend sitting next to her you point and look at him.
What you're talking about gets more into classifiers. When signing classifiers look at what your hands are doing, this sets a classifier off.
Another way we use eye gaze is if instead of pointing to show what we're talking about we point with the eyes, typically accompanied with a nod and eye brow raise. This is to be discreet when signing.
Eye gaze also shows who are signing for. You know, for example, when people tell stories they change their voice to mimic the person in the dialog, well we do this in sign also.
Say I'm talking to a boy and he's really tall, and I go to tell my friend about this well when I'm explaining our conversation I will blend, or become him, and with my eyes and body I will look down on what would be me. The opposite is true for when signing for me I would look up at him.
Buoys and Fragments
Sometimes when we sign we hold part of a previous sign during the next sign, if the next sign is a one handed sign.
I will explain more later.
Non manual markers
When signing we are not mouthing the English words while we sign, we use mouth morphemes to act as adverbs.
Some common ones are:
"CHA" big, enormus, giant
"THHH" Careless
"MMMMM" regular, habitual, comfortable.
-Tight lips- Small, secret, shhhh
-Eye squint- Something small
-Eyes widen- shock, something big
-head tilt to the side- recently.
Lazy signs and how to communicate with your hands full
You're such an idiom
Talk to self/wall:
Ulnar surface of I handshapes tap repeatedly.
Consume time/gas/money etc
Curved B hand runs past cheek near mouth.
THOUGHTS-ZOOM-BY
With G handshapes run them past the head while squeezing your eyes and pursing lips
Used when after a lecture or when someone's talking about some topic and you didn't understand.
Hot (looking)
Make the sign for WARM but bring it up on to the face like you're signing HOT and then PRETTY without the circular movement
NOTE: This is the sign the teens in my area use, other deaf people might not know this sign!
Sexy
using curved B hands trace the outline of a bootylicious female or male body.
Baby got back!
Same as SEXY but at the end change the B hands to an S and then a 5 really quick with big eyes.
THINK-TOUCH
Means to obsess about.
TOUCH-FINISH
"Have you been to...?" things like that.
KNOW-NOTHING
Using one hand sign nothing on the forehead used for things like, "HE KNOW-NOTHING" "He doesn't know a thing.
DISAPPEAR-MIND
Take the sign for DISAPPEAR and sign it at the forehead to mean "it slipped my mind"
TRUE-WORK
Sign TRUE and then WORK to mean "Seriously" "This is serious!"
WHATS-UP
25 hand shape at shoulders palms facing torso moves up in an arc to near the ears. "What's up?"
BY-HAIR
Grab an IMAGINARY hair and then pull it out and drop it. Same as "by a hair" in English
FUNNY-NONE
Sign FUN then ZERO means "that's not funny"
TIRED-OF-IT
Almost like FARM but end with an S hand shape, same as English "old new" also
CLOSE-MOUTH
At the mouth go from a 5 hand to an S hand, means like, "keep it to yourself" "Don't say anything"
LOCK-HORN
Y hands butt against each other, same as English idiom.
THINK-THROW
Sign THINK then grab the air in front of you and throw it over your shoulder, means "Forget about it" "stop thinking about it"
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 7:32 pm
You want culture? I'll give you culture!
Deaf people are a very proud people.
We do not look at our deafness as a diability, but rather as something that brings us together.
Do not tell us we tell very nice.
Do not ask us how to sign a swear word if you know no sign.
Do not ask the interpretor either.
Do not bother the interpretor while they are interpreting for us.
Do not shout at us, that will not get our attention
Do tap us on the shoulder and side of the arm.
Do stomp or flash the lights if it's an emergency.
Do no assume we read lips or can talk
Do no assume a gesture in English is the same in ASL.
Do have patience with trying to communicate.
Do try and sign to us, it makes most of us happy.
Ignore anyone who criticizes you for your signing level.
Do not tell us how to sign.
Don't be offended if we tell you we're going to the bathroom, it's what we do.
Don't be offended if you think we ask you too much, it's what we do.
Don't be offended if we hug or touch you a lot, it's what we do.
Don't say things like, "Thank God you can't hear that god awful thing"
Don't ask how we became deaf unless we tell you or we've known you long enough, it's a personal thing.
Know that not all deaf people come from a family that signs, some are the only ones that know how to sign in their family. Imagine not being able to talk to your mom or dad because they don't speak the same language as you!
Take your turn in a conversation.
And simply treat us like you would like to be treated. biggrin
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 7:33 pm
So, uh, what's it like?
Here's an average day for me being deaf,
I wake up to my bed vibrating and flashing lights at 7 am, it's time to get up.
I go to the bathroom, take a shower make myself all pretty.
Go downstairs, make myself some pancakes go to living room to eat.
In the middle of the eating the cat gets my attention and takes me to the kitchen, I left the water on.
I brush my teeth and then head out to my car and drive to school.
I arrive to school early to hang out with my friends, I hurry up and finish French homework while trying to read my hearing friends lips,
I throw my pen at them because they keep turning their heads while talking to me so I can't see.
First-fourth period I go to my classes, greet interpretor and pay attention or try to.
I go to lunch, I smile and look pretty while pointing to what I want on the menu, the lunch lady turns the computer towards me so I can see the price, I pay.
Sit with friends and try to have a conversation with the only other deaf person in school who happens to be my boyfriend while having a conversation with our hearing friends by reading lips and voicing.
Go back to class with interpretor for the rest of the day.
Drive to Wal*mart to pick up some stuff. Greeter thinks I'm an a** because I didn't see their lips moving.
Try to check out and pay for my items but takes ten minutes longer because the cashier insists on trying to charge me credit for my debit card.
I have to go to a doctors appointment. I wait half an hour for the interpretor to show up late.
I arrive at work, handle customer service emails and mail in orders and any deaf people who call in.
Go home, visit with mom and siblings. The lights flash and I go to answer the door.
The lights flash again this time more regularly, the phone's ringing, I answer and tell them to hold on, I'm deaf. Hand the phone to my mother, it's a telemarketer message.
I go to bed and then wake up again.
Got any more questions I haven't covered here? Ask them!
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Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 7:14 pm
I think flashing lights, at any time, would bugger the hell out of me. Are they very bright?
Anyway, I looked on the ASLPro website and am quite proud of the fact I can say, "Your socks do not match." A shame it doesn't say, "My socks do not match," because they hardly ever do. Or, is the person implied? Awesome lessons and links, by the by. wink [say=sign... :3]
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Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 3:01 pm
Kalathma I think flashing lights, at any time, would bugger the hell out of me. Are they very bright?
Anyway, I looked on the ASLPro website and am quite proud of the fact I can say, "Your socks do not match." A shame it doesn't say, "My socks do not match," because they hardly ever do. Or, is the person implied? Awesome lessons and links, by the by. wink
No, ha ha, the lamp lights just flash on and off, but the other lights are bright enough for me too see, but they wouldn't blind you.
Yes, ASL, like Spanish things are implied, but for the sentence, "My socks don't match" You would add the sign for MY and it would be ASL.
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Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 8:09 am
The STD Fairy
No, ha ha, the lamp lights just flash on and off, but the other lights are bright enough for me too see, but they wouldn't blind you.
Yes, ASL, like Spanish things are implied, but for the sentence, "My socks don't match" You would add the sign for MY and it would be ASL.
Ah, it's certainly an improvement from what I thought. xD
Oh, that's good... The 'my' sign goes where in the sentence? [I think first?]
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Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 7:03 pm
Kalathma The STD Fairy
No, ha ha, the lamp lights just flash on and off, but the other lights are bright enough for me too see, but they wouldn't blind you.
Yes, ASL, like Spanish things are implied, but for the sentence, "My socks don't match" You would add the sign for MY and it would be ASL.
Ah, it's certainly an improvement from what I thought. xD
Oh, that's good... The 'my' sign goes where in the sentence? [I think first?]
"My socks match not"
So yes, it would go infront.
biggrin
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Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 6:00 am
The STD Fairy
"My socks match not"
So yes, it would go infront.
biggrin
Thanks. biggrin
I'll be doing that all day now, as my socks are definitely not matching. sweatdrop
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Reply
