Internet Slang Meets American Sign Language

hopesandfears.com

29 points·Thevet··6 comments

Signed languages are incredibly fluid. Grammar order (more like English, or more quote-unquote 'pure' ASL style?), nouns and verbs (drive 100 miles in any direction, and at least some signs will be different with the locals), even 'accents' based on city, race, culture.

What's really amazing about it is that despite this, someone very fluent in Sign can usually communicate with locals very quickly, and pick up the local signs in a short time.

I wonder if we will start seeing companies coming up with their official signs? I guess that should be happening already.

Although if the company isn't already plugged into the Deaf culture, I doubt that they will be able to exercise much control over what their own sign winds up being. It's easy to imagine a company creating a sign for themselves that's awkward and/or unnatural to use, simply out of ignorance (or because they're a special snowflake and the rules don't apply to them).

I'd have an interest in learning ASL but now that I'm abroad, it doesn't make much sense. There is a regional variant where I am but being an expat/nomad, that might not be a great idea to learn either. Even though I'm against there being an international language (ie, English), I really wouldn't mind a more robust ISL.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Sign

This article is reminding me of how terrible Adobe Flash is.

I really liked this comment as some insight into how being deaf changes your culture and perception/communication:

“It’s almost like an open mic if you will,” Douglas communicated via interpreter over the phone, “I call it an open stage because we don’t use a mic

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