Signing away:)
By arkaf61
@arkaf61 (10881)
Canada
March 6, 2008 8:31pm CST
I Love to learn new languages. If I had the time and the money I would still be both learning in a classrrom and by practice by visiting different countries.
I suppose the reason why I like to learn languages so much is because I like to communicate. THere is a connection there for me.
IN any case since I didn't go to work today I spent part of my day re-reading one of my sign language books.
Long time ago one of my best friends got an adoptive sister. The adoptive sister was deaf. Signing was the way she communicated with us.WE all decided to learn it properly and in time it became a kind of a secret language within our group as well as a great way for Isabel - my friend's sister - to feel included in all we did.
I can't claim to ever be extremely good at it, but I guess I could make myself almost understood at times LOL I confess I also sign wrong enough to make her laugh sometimes, but the whole thing was an incredible experience.
When I came to Canada I was teaching after school at a community center and one of my students signed. She had very limited hearing but was also able to speak and she could read lips, but she felt more confident signing. That made me look into signing again.
I found out the there are a few differences in the signs I learned back home and in here, but a lot are the same.
Lately I've been thinking that I would like to learn it in more depth. For me signing is basically just one more language.
Would this interest you? Are you in any way familiar with sing language? Do you see singing as just one more language or something else different?
3 people like this
12 responses
@SViswan (12051)
• India
15 Mar 08
Yeah, I know
.
I'll just have to wait a year...with the little one, a job AND my present course, I guess that will have to wait till I have the time. Though I am teaching kindergarten now, I plan to work towards teaching primary a couple of years down. And I've always been interested in sign language...and I thought it would be great if such kids could be taking classes along with normal children (which doesn't happen in India). I've got some great plans which will benefit all kids in my head...but it will be a few years before I can incorporate it.
I'll probably have a look at the sites in the meantime...just to get an idea.
.
I'll just have to wait a year...with the little one, a job AND my present course, I guess that will have to wait till I have the time. Though I am teaching kindergarten now, I plan to work towards teaching primary a couple of years down. And I've always been interested in sign language...and I thought it would be great if such kids could be taking classes along with normal children (which doesn't happen in India). I've got some great plans which will benefit all kids in my head...but it will be a few years before I can incorporate it.
I'll probably have a look at the sites in the meantime...just to get an idea.
@vanities (11395)
• Davao, Philippines
7 Mar 08
nope its not a different language its just that the word itself was being put into signs so that the deaf mute will be able to understand and learned in school despite of being handicapped..i tried once but it needs constant practice to be effective on it...
1 person likes this
@vanities (11395)
• Davao, Philippines
7 Mar 08
i got your point in it being another form of language..but in my perspective a sign language was just the same..just like compared to the blind they had different way of learning the alphabet and reading it without actually seeing it..when i think about language its like for example english language is different from tagalog which we use just like in germany and other countries who does not use english and same as in the middle east..
@arkaf61 (10881)
• Canada
7 Mar 08
Yes, but isn't it a language a way to communicate with others? So if was created to facilitate communication, it can be considered another form or language, like writing, street lights, morse code etc :)
Actually not everyone that is deaf is mute. More and more deaf people are able to speak and although the speech might seem a bit toneless because they can't really hear it it's easily understood.
People that can hear but in a very limited way often use sign language as well.
I prefer to see it as another language because the connotation of handicap in that sense does not sound as appropriate. If anything knowing to sign is an extra skill.
I agree with you that constant practice is needed. I think that right now, if I tried to sign a medium sized sentence the person watching me would fall asleep before I finished LOL
1 person likes this
@lingli_78 (12821)
• Australia
7 Mar 08
i love to learn languanges too and i think sign language will be intersting to learn... if i have a chance, i will definitely want to learn it so that i can also communicate with disabled people...
1 person likes this
@arkaf61 (10881)
• Canada
14 Mar 08
For us it started as some sort of necessity, but it became more than that.
I see it as another language because it allows me to communicate with some people that I wouldn't be able to communicate with if I didn't know it.
Of course my knowledge is very limited, but I would like to learn and practice more.
@byfaithonly (10698)
• United States
17 Mar 08
I would love to learn sign language myself - I actually have a book on it and at one time was 'self teaching' and my daughter was also learning but afraid other things came up and we stopped. I should pull that book out and work on it again - I greatly admire people who know sign-language.
1 person likes this
@sukumar794 (5040)
• Thiruvananthapuram, India
7 Mar 08
Substituting signs for words is a great step to learning languages.After all ,language is the prime means of communication between humans. Signing is definitely just the creation of a linguistic tool which assist phenomenally in learning as well as teaching languages.
1 person likes this
@daeckardt (6237)
• United States
7 Mar 08
I took two years of sign language classes (ASL) when I was attending a community college in Riverside California. I never got very good at it, but I felt that in that area, it was almost as important as learning Spanish would be. I was doing EMT-1 at the same time as I took my first class so I felt that would be an important skill to know. I have since forgotten most of it, but I still occasionally try to use it. I do think it is another language, but it is also much more.
1 person likes this
@GardenGerty (169449)
• United States
7 Mar 08
When I worked at Head Start we had two students who were profoundly deaf, who each got cochlear implants. The goal was to develop whole language for them, so that they would speak, so we had to learn Signing Exact English--in which every word is signed, and is word for word. The other predominent sign language that we see around here is called American Sign Language, which is conceptual, rather than word for word. I loved it. We all signed a little, and then we also had a trained sign language interpreter in the classroom. I love to think of the signs for words as I sing praise songs. I have not really had occasion to practice it for at least four years. Signing to me is communicating with your whole self.
@Fishmomma (11658)
• United States
7 Mar 08
I love sign language, which is a great way to communicate. Its a required class for my daughter in her college program. She needs to take 4 terms, so should be really good.
I completed the class a long years ago. About 10 years ago, I spent a year teaching sign language to second graders, which was so much fun. The students were excited to learn and show their parents a play in sign language.
@lordwarwizard (35747)
• Singapore
7 Mar 08
Hi Arkaf,
I love languages too.
It would be so great if I can speak many languages and can communicate fluently with any one I meet.
However, I think you need a flair for such things. I think I am above average when it comes to learning languages but still impossibly far from those who have flairs.
I learned the alphabet for sign language before and that's that. But if you ask me now, I can't remember any of it due to lack of use.
@youless (114117)
• Guangzhou, China
7 Mar 08
It's good to learn more foreign languages. And I think singing a foreign song is a good way to study it. Besides my mother language, I know English. Therefore, I like listening and singing English songs. I learned a little bit French, but it's not good enough to sing and listen to a French song.
@drannhh (15219)
• United States
7 Mar 08
When I first tried to learn a little ASL I was really taken aback by the lack of gender neutrality and stopped knowing that the further I went into it the more time I would spend with that issue, given that at that time very few people would even admit that a bias existed. That was some time ago and I hope the changes you noticed address those deficiencies in the structure of ASL. At least it is now ok to talk about and even joke about there being a bias, as evidenced by the last paragraph on this page:
http://lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-signs/a/aunt.htm
1 person likes this
@arkaf61 (10881)
• Canada
7 Mar 08
I guess there are some things that might be considered as a bias, but i see it more as being easier to convey meaning and sometimes misinterpreted.
For example, in the page that you linked there seems to be the idea that the male sign and signs deriving from a male are near the forehead - thus the brain - and the female near the mouth. It seems easy to infer the bias in here as the person who wrote it concluded.
However I learned that the sign for male derives from the tipping the hat gesture indeed close to the forehead and that would bring the idea of male.
While the female sign, not as much close to the mouth but coming down along the right cheek, comes from the idea of tying a ....hat, no not a hat, a .. darn those things women used to wear... a bonnet I think it's what I mean.That would then bring the idea of woman/female.
I agree that some things might have some bias into it, the language was created at a time where many things specially gender had huge bias,but changing the whole language would be a huge task and probably confusing.
I prefer to take the signs at face value, helping me to understand what the person means without over analyzing possible bias. But you're right in the sense that yes, it is there.
1 person likes this
@tinkerick (1257)
• United States
7 Mar 08
I love signing. I learned the alphabet and a few signs back in grade school and still remember them. But never had much opportunity to actually use them.
I think many people don't see sign as another language. It more viewed as a way to assist someone with a handicap, kind of like a wheelchair assists. But in reality it IS a whole other language and should be given the same respect as any other language. And I definitely think it's worth learning. ~Tink
1 person likes this
