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Sign Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| manpped Groupie United States Joined 5953 days ago 55 posts - 71 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Japanese, Spanish Studies: Sign Language | Message 17 of 20 16 April 2009 at 9:14pm | IP Logged |
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Yay, sign language!
I adore ASL! I haven't had much practice with the language--I've only had one semester's worth of classes--but I love it. When I used to work at a UPS Store, I had a deaf couple who came in nearly every Saturday. One day, I tried to be a bit courageous and, as the man finished paying me, I hesitantly signed "HAVE NICE DAY." Of course, I signed "HAVE THANK YOU DAY," but that's not the point. The man smiled, corrected me, and--knocking on the counter to get my attention--signed "THANK YOU" as he left. Ah, now that's encouragement to learn a language. ;) I really love the visual aspect of ASL (and other signed languages). It's a very different way of expression. Even the grammar is spatial. Glossed over, ASL seems like chopped, somewhat ungrammatical English. But the gloss doesn't cover the visual grammar. For example, space around the body is very important. Tense can be expressed simply by where the sign is placed (away from the body, close to the body, etc.). I'm especially curiously about transparency between ASL and FSL--ASL was developing from FSL! I think that BSL and ASL differ more than FSL and ASL! Regarding the lack of a "universal" sign language: the way I see it, there is variation in spoken language and variation in scripts. Why not variation in sign? ;) Lastly: you can find some really neat vlogs and such on YouTube. YouTube has really been a huge boon for Deaf culture. Edited by manpped on 16 April 2009 at 9:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| robertdover8 Groupie United States Joined 6018 days ago 43 posts - 42 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 18 of 20 17 April 2009 at 8:54am | IP Logged |
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"Unzum, I speak a sign language (French) but"
You speak a sign language? : ) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Akipenda Lugha Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 5736 days ago 78 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Swahili, Sign Language, Spanish | Message 19 of 20 19 April 2009 at 4:12pm | IP Logged |
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ASL is taught at the school I'm going to in September and I'm thinking about taking
the first level course. Can anyone share experiences of beginning to learn a sign language, from the perspective of a language-lover? The course would have to vie for priority with my other three languages, but I should be able to put one of them off to learn some sign. The main reason I am interested is that my uncle married a woman who has a deaf son. It would be nice to be able to communicate with him, but I would make an effort to seek out a signing community, just like any other language. I remember a workshop I went to on grief and everyone went around in the circle and talked about some loss they had experienced. I was 22 and all I had to say was that I broke up with my girlfriend (boohoo), but one older woman there told us about her deaf son who she communicated with in sign languages. This son had died, and she felt like the part of her that signed had died too and she missed the language. She sobbed and sobbed, it was pretty moving. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Torbyrne Super Polyglot Senior Member Macedonia SpeakingFluently.com Joined 6093 days ago 126 posts - 721 votes Speaks: French, English*, German, Spanish, Dutch, Macedonian, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Czech, Catalan, Welsh, Serbo-Croatian Studies: Sign Language, Toki Pona, Albanian, Polish, Bulgarian, TurkishA1, Esperanto, Romanian, Danish, Mandarin, Icelandic, Modern Hebrew, Greek, Latvian, Estonian | Message 20 of 20 19 April 2009 at 4:40pm | IP Logged |
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Akipenda,
I am definitely an avid language learner generally. Like a lot of people on this forum, I study seriously some languages and dabble in others. British Sign Language is one of my latest language adventures and I have to say that it has been a rewarding one. I attend a class, as you plan to do. As someone who usually concentrates on reading, writing, listening and speaking skills in a given language, sign language is very different. It uses none of those four area we typically think of in language learning. It is very much a visual way of communicating one's ideas. In the beginning I had thought that my linguistic background would not give me much of an advantage over other people. Whilst I still don't believe the spoken languages I know help to learn the language, they do give me the confidence to try things out more than perhaps a monolingual student. I am certainly not afraid of making mistakes or looking silly. After all it is all part of the learning process and a path for me that is well trodden. As you progress in sign language, you begin to focus less on specific signs and their meaning, but more on how they are signed. For example, describing an emotion and the degree to which you feel that emotion are displayed by the intensity with which you sign (facial expressions and body language play a big role). Indeed some signs you learn as a beginning soon fade into the background as mere crutches to start you on your path. The focus shifts. This visual feature is also important to give tone to the language, otherwise it "sounds" monotonous to other signers. One thing that is sometimes difficult is remembering lip patterns. Sometimes you use them and sometimes you don't. That has been a challenge for quite a few people I know, myself included, but it is very important when you have one sign that can mean several things with only varying lip patterns to distinguish between them (for example husband, wife and married are all the same sign in BSL for example but the lip patterns are different). Lip pattern is also helpful if you come across a sign you don't know (perhaps in a dialect - there are many regional variations in BSL for example) and you rely on the lip pattern to understand what is being signed. All the best with your sign language studies. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Richard Simcott 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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