American Sign Language
 

Is ASL an equivalent to Russian, French, Spanish, German, Japanese, etc? Why or why not?

Having no expertise whatsoever I would say no. Though I might say being deaf in and of itself would be equivalent to speaking one of the mentioned languages on some level. Each language's structure and phrasing gives a different window onto thouight that I don't think is matched by using hand gestures in loo of vocalizations. But I should re-enforce that I don't have a clue how sign language is actually spoken, or wether it is qualitatively different than american english.

all I remember is my spanish teacher pointing out that the manual alphabet does not exactly translate to spanish. Seems one letter in english ("T" I think) comes out as the finger in spanish. Of course another spanish teacher told of how he went around a spanish seminar trying to tell people how embarrassed he was with his poor spanish (he spoke 5 languages), when in fact he was telling them how Pregnant he was. Languages can get ya into trouble like that.

This site has some interesting info. Here's a quote:

"There are 140 different sign languages known around the world, and dozens more to find. Nearly all of them have been developed by communities of deaf people."

http://www.wycliffe.org/training/signlang.htm

I think that Canadian sign language is even different from American sign language (maybe not 100% but different enough that communication is not guaranteed). When I lived in Korea I had a lot of friends who friends who were deaf. Depending on their ages many of them had never been taught Korean and could not read or write Korean, so their sign language was not really even based on their "national language." For those people their signing was different than those who had been educated in Korean, and who could read and write it, and who had been in schools for the deaf where they also received formal sign training. Some of them would sign differently to me than they would to each other. They would sign in what was as close to gramatically correct Korean so I could understand it, but when they signed among each other I was luck to pick up 10% of it.

I was able to use some of my signing when I went back in August, but I've lost most of it, as it has been more than 10 years since I lived there.

Sign languages are actually very rich and expressive. I remember thinking at the time that signing was probably one of the purest forms of expression of thought.

I ask because I have been involved in a contentious debate about whether ASL should be a substitute for a traditional foreign language in our core curriculum. My position has been that it should not be because all of our foreign language options are written languages for a good reason. A written language is more powerful than a language only spoken. Written languages have a vast array of cultural resources readily available to the student that are much more difficult to obtain and less extenesive in a language only spoken. ASL depends upon English for its written component, therefore is not an equivalent to other written languages. This doesn't imply that ASL is not a distinct language or a language without a rich culture, only that the study of ASL is not equivalent to the study of traditional written foreign languages.
The fact that cultures with different written languages have different sign languages, may also reinforce the idea that sign language is subordinate to another language if a language is thought to include writing. The contrary view is that videotaping sign language is the equivalent of writing so it is the same as written languages. I think this a partly true, but signers still find writing an important cultural skill and are unlikely to completely substitute writing with videotaping.
I do agree that speaking a language and signing a language are roughly equal.
Is there a deaf ASL or other sign language user here that could comment on this?

420SEL: Why do you think signing is a purer form of expression?

It's hard to articulate why I find that signing seemed to be a purer form or communication than I was used to. Perhaps it was much more noticeable in Korea, where society shaped the language, and now language works to shape society. Many of the deaf people I knew did not have the opportunity to learn Korean in schools due to their socioeconomic circumstances, and the way society as a whole looked at them (this has changed remarkably since I was first there). I always felt when I was signing with them that I was always getting what was really being "said" with no interference from a structured language. The culture of the deaf community was also different in Korea, of course closer to Korean than our own, but almost independent.

I'm certainly no expert in linguistics, but I do consider Korean sign to have been a third language when I was proficient at it, mainly because I could communicate with a group of people that most Koreans could not.

I do see your point about ASL. I stand to be corrected, but to me, ASL seems like a standardized communication built as another way of expressing ideas in English, without the power of speech or benefit of sound.

I do not think that sign language is subordinate to another language in all cases. For most of the people I knew, if only one family member was deaf, the sign language was standardized to Korean. In other cases, Korean was definitly a second language to some of my friends, and many were amazed that I was able to read and write it better than they were. Through a church connection, I met one impovershed family with a deaf daughter. The mother was deaf, but the father and brother were not. None were well educated. The mother had been sent to prision shortly after the daughter was born for stealing (to feed her family), and the daughter was raised without her. There was little communication between the father and the daughter as he did not sign, and she had never been taught. She had developed a series of basic signs that her father and brother had picked up on over the years (she was about 6 when I met her). There was no resemblance between her signs and standardized Korean sign language.

Nothing I have to offer on this topic is anything other than personal observation, so I don't know how helpful that is in contributing to your discussion in an academic setting. One thing I am fairly confident in is that standardized sign languages were not developed for the benefit of deaf people, as they are able to communicate with each other without a standardized language (the less standardized their signing, the more they seem able to communicate with deaf people of other cultures), it seems more likely they were developed to help deaf people communicate with each non-deaf people and vice-versa.

I had two deaf friends who travelled to Japan on separate occasions. One was well educated and used standardized Korean signing exclusively. She told me she was unable to communicate with any deaf people in Japan as their sign language was different. The other was not as rigorous in using standard sign language, and told me it was not easy, but she managed to get along and made friends with deaf people in Japan.

I don't like viewing English as somehow the mother of ASL. It's Anglocentric at best, at worst, it's discriminatory. Two points:

First, we are unable to understand the extent of the depth and breadth of experience which native ASL signers have compared to native English speakers. Just because it doesn't translate well into our mother tongue, or any other for that matter, doesn't marginalize ASL as a legitimate language. Frege type intensions and connotations may be distinctly different between two languages. In fact, there's some question as to whether two speakers pointing to the same object are, in fact, pointing to the same "object." But as empathatic as we may be, we cannot "be" the other person. It's my guess that their experiences are as rich as ours. If you allow that, you then have to allow that ASL is a legitimate language.

Second, for the deaf, ASL is a native tongue, and written English is subservient to ASL. Native ASL signers grew up learning ASL first, and then written English. We, as native English speakers, may choose learn Chinese in terms of English, and it's the opposite for a native Chinese speaker. Flip flop it, there's no difference.

Nobody's arguing that English is the mother of ASL, or that French is the mother of FSL. What I'm saying is that to my knowledge, ASL or FSL or BSL, whatever the sign language is, has never evolved into a written language independently of some other language. Hence if we want students to study a written language, there is something inherently problematical in equating ASL with a written foreign language.
I'm being accused of being discriminatory by other people also. But it's clearly not anglocentric because the situation applies in any culture with any written language which also has a sign language as a subset of that broader cultural language. I'm saying ASL is the equivalent of any other spoken only language but it is not the equivlent of another language which includes writing.
The issue comes down to the power of writing in language, culture and in particular universities. The reason that most (every?) western university has offered written foreign language to students in their core curriculums is that written languages are more powerful than spoken only language. Spoken languages have evolved into written languages but I don't know of any written language that has changed back into a spoken only language.
There are thousands of spoken only languages in the world, and I don't think it's just a matter of discrimination that these languages are not traditionally considered equals of written languages in education. I might even go as far as to think that the reason we require Math of all college students is that it is a more powerful language than English, French etc although I'm not as sure about this.
By the way, Galaudet University only accepts written foreign languages to meet their foreign language requirement. (no mention of ASL, FSL etc). When I brought this up to the people accusing me of being discriminatory their answer was that such a requirement was the deaf discriminating against the deaf!
Let me have it.

BobK,

If your Spanish teacher knows enough to teach Spanish he certainly should know that the Spanish word for pregnant and embarrassed are the same word. Sexiest as it may be that is the case.

Nope. I'm not letting you have it. ASL cannot have a written counterpart because the signing is itself the written part.

You have a point about the writing, but I think a lot of people have a difficult time learning a language on paper. Therefore the vast array of written resources may not be as useful to them as practicing speaking with someone who knows the language well. I know that for a lot of people immersion is the only way they will become competent in a foreign language, i.e. they have to live in France or Russia or wherever for a while. Videotaping would be useful in learning sign language, however. I've tried to learn some signs from books and it's not impossible but it is very difficult.

I know a few people who sign, and how you do it is fairly personal. Everyone has their own 'slang.' I'm not sure the differences in sign language around the world have a lot to do with the spoken/written languages in those parts. At least some of the differences are due to the fact that like written and spoken langauage, different groups of people invented different ways of doing it with minimal input from people from other parts of the world. It may be that a lot of the differences are in fact due to the different rules of grammar and syntax in various written/spoken languages, though. I don't know.

I would also say that in the future, more people are likely to be using sign language. Many people who aren't capable of speech wouldn't have been taught jack in the past, except by their parents, but modern day schools are much, much better at teaching students with disabilities. In addition a lot of babies and young kids are being taught sign language because it allows them to accurately communicate things before they are able to speak.

Viewed from an academic/administrative perspective, I think ASL should be considered a foreign language in terms of meeting language requirements.

I remember back in the dark-ages grad students had to demonstrate written proficiency in two languages and spoken proficiency in one. Where and when I was in grad school we were allowed to substitute a computer programming language for reading proficiency. I was gonna take LISP but a CS friend of mine said it wasn't worth the effort because in a few years LISP would disappear. I had a LISP interpreter on my Apple II+ that somebody had written in Applesoft BASIC. Talk about spaghetti code!

Kerry, are foreign language requirements still found in universities?

B

I meant let me have it as 'fire at will'.
Why is the signing the written part and not the spoken part? My detractors are arguing that the written part of ASL is a videotape or film. My take on that is that if the signing or videotape were the equivalent of writing, ASL users would never need to write. They do write. No ASL college student could complete college without writing because writing is so fundamental to the success of our species.
I'm not thinking that ASL is not a 'valid' language or that it is not good or useful to learn it. I'm just thinking that it's not the same as learning a written foreign languge.
I'm not sure about the expansion of sign languages in the future because cochlear implants may reduce the need for it. From what I've read, they are very controversial in the deaf community because if they become widespread they undermine deaf culture.

This raises an interesting issue. Our system will not accept any Conversational XXX as a foreign language. All foreign language courses must include written language. I'm thinking this is an essential component of all universities which privilege writing over speaking. This seems justified in my mind, because without writing we wouldn't have universities.

What is the justification for requiring a foreign language?

Foreign languages are not currently required in all Colorado schools but they will be in a few years. Some Colorado universities require knowledge of a foreign language to graduate. We currently offer foreign languages as one amongst many options in an 'Arts and Humanities' category.
I'm thinking that the basic justification for a foreign language is how could any country possibly be an imperial power without an educated class which knew more than their native language? On a less cynical level, from the the standpoint of European culture, once all higher learning stopped being conducted in the single language of Latin, communication between educated elites required facility in more than one language/culture. Something similar to that must underlie our rationale today.
I don't think computer language qualifies as equivalent to a traditional foreign language because it isn't spoken and doesn't have a culture associated with it.

I think you're making a category mistake KE. Just because it looks different doesn't mean it is, after all, there are ways in which written and spoken parts can do exactly the same thing. Suppose we attach a long pencil to the signers hands. Now you dictate something and have the signer. (who obviously can hear) Can that be considered writing? If we replace the signer with a person writing in the traditional manner. We can all agree that the person is writing. Different physical connection, different result, same abstract idea. Possible in principle, physical limitations being the only factor in preventing this from happening. Yet, it is conceivable that someday someone may develop this skill.

My paternal grandfather grew-up in rural central Texas (near Austin). He attended an academy which required Greek and Latin as part of the core curriculum. He also had geometry and trigonometry. My grandfather died in 1962 at the age of 75, IIRC.

His was a rural school. His parents (my great-grandparents) and others in the area banded together to start a school for their kids in the 1850's or so, anyway, after the Texas War for Independence. No, they were not rich people in the modern sense since they had little money. But my family had been ranching since the 1830's, when they moved from SC. So their range land covered a large area.

They hired teachers (one at a time, I'd guess) by advertising in European newspapers in which they offered to pay the expenses of coming to TX, a house which would also be the school, and a small stipend. IIRC the teacher they hired was Swedish. Not sure when he arrived. But his pioneering resulted in immigration from Sweden to that part of Texas for decades afterward.

It's a funny world.

B

I'm not convinced. People who teach their children to sign, still want their children to learn how to write. The child could just sign, but just like hearing children the parents will want them to write. Oral language is a 'natural' skill whereas written language is a much more 'constructed' skill. Almost all humans will learn to speak if left alone. Humans left alone to speak, took a long time to develop writing and children who are not taught it nowadays will not be able to write or read.
Whole cultures seem to have similar attitudes because when people with spoken languages get the opportunity to learn to write and read the language they often do.
It seems to me that the main difference between written and spoken languages is the storage device that the speakers now have. The best storage device in a spoken language is the brain of one person, who perhaps by collaborating with another brain can extend the storage capacity. But once language is written down, the storage potential almost becomes unlimited. That's why I think a written language is more powerful than a spoken language and why we privilege it in societies than can write.

I think Greek and Latin should still be choices to satisfy a foreign language requirement, even though Latin is a dead language. I don't think a dead spoken language should be a choice. The reason for the distinction is that the storage devices which contain a dead written language are still accessible whereas the storage devices for a dead spoken language are innaccesible.

i am now wondering the extent to which mathematics is possible in a culture with only a spoken language. Any ideas? I cannot imagine teaching any level of mathematics beyond the most rudimentary without a textbook and a blackboard.

In botany, new plant species must have a latin description. I took an advanced plant taxonomy course in grad school. The prof was a classical taxonomist (also disparagingly referred to as an 'alpha taxonomist'). One exercise we had to do for a lab was to translate a latin description of a plant and translate it into English and then draw it. (There were some mighty peculiar looking plant drawings!) I remember wanting to ask about a part of the translation. I thought the question was sufficiently general that the ensuing discussion would be useful for the handful of students taking the course. So I read aloud the part that was giving me trouble. The more I read the more embarrassed I got with my butchery of the language. The prof said something like, "Don't worry Grasshopper. Nobody alive today knows what Latin should sound like."

Concerning your thesis of language, I think that's an interesting take on it. Let me admit that I know next to NOTHING about the theory of languages --- other than the people who study that stuff often seem near violence as they disagree.

My older brother received his graduate degree in cultural anthropology and has a deep and abiding interest in languages. He's also a free-market libertarian (lower-case L). What has that to do with anything? Just this, Noam Cholmsky is a minor deity in my brother's pantheon of researchers. If my brother can bring himself to admire Cholmsky then I'd guess Cholmsky is pretty good.

B

Not in the standard notation as taught in our schools I don't think, but in a sense, the grouping of animals into herds represents the foundations of set theory.

Not so sure it isn't spoken by a computer.../cultures are changing every day... all sounds sort of arbitrary to me. Does the state law give a firm reason or is it just unexplained maindate?

I agree the foundations are there but the house can't be built very high beyond the foundation without writing.

I can't recall reading a specific justification but it came into effect under a Republican controlled Commission on Higher Education that was intent on returning to a traditional college core curriculum for all the reasons found in that culture war. They wanted to remove 'boutique' courses like Women's Studies, Native American History, Ethnic Studies, etc from the Core and replace them with more traditional courses like US History, European History, Philosophy, Math, Natural Sciences and Foreign Languages. Dead Straight White Guys instead of Living Lesbian Liberians.

Good. Cows are the objects being counted, they represent themselves. Hence they are the object language. They can be used to represent goats, and you can talk about goats in cow-ese as if they were goats themselves. ie., the cows are the object language. Now rearrange the cows like the beads in an abacus. We have "writing," just not Arabic script.

VERY primitive and not very powerful yet, but 'writing' in its incipient phase.

Why? The power isn't something intrinsic in text. We can imagine text to represent anything. A champion rancher and his dog could manipulate those cows anyway he wants, slow, but just as powerful. Just like that computer that runs on water.

There's no long term storage device for the information, making those techniques less powerful.

Your gripe is just about a technicality, the mode of transmisison. Human non-verbal communication hasn't disappeared with the advent of written language.

I don't think it's a technicality. Cultures with writing have come to dominant the world. I'm not sure what you mean by the second sentence but I do agree that spoken language remains once writing appears, but very few thoughtful people want to stick solely with the spoken version if the written is also available.

I meant that nonverbal communication doesn't have a written analog, yet has managed to survive.

Here's a link to a defense of ASL as an equivalent language, but like some others I have read, it doesn't address the fact that writing is not a part of it. It says it is as complex as a written language but that doesn't strike me as carrying much weight. It's probably as complex as any spoken language but there's no analysis of the differences between spoken/signed languages on the one hand and written language on the other.

http://www.wilbers.com/ASL.htm

What would Claud Shannon an Norbert Weiner say about all of this?

In their analysis, information transmission is only possible if the next symbol down the pipe has a probability associated with it. In a binary system for example, no information is transmitted if the signal output is always "1", no matter the input. Or as Jack Nicholson demonstrated, if the message, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" is typed repeatedly for hundreds of pages, the message is redundant and no information is received. Probably after 4 or 5 randomly chosen page's one would probably be tempted to ignore the remainder.

ASL conveys information and that information can either be redundant or rich in meaning and subject to endless interpretation.

Here's another way to look at information transmission. I understand that all of the Chinese languages use the same ideographs for the same information, but the spoken words may be unintelligible between two Chinese who don't share the same spoken language.

And finally, there are the apes that can learn ASL and teach it to other apes
but do not have a spoken language.


That should muddy the waters quite thoroughly.

B

Then I say change the name of the course to: 'Tissage de panier 101' and let them take anything.

I do think the real worth in a foreign language from an academic perspective is not to be understood but to understand differently, not to be able to read, which is plumbing, but to be able to imagine, which is design.

Nicely done!

Clank
Clank
Clank
......
Clank
Clank
...Swish :)

Here's another way to formulate my view. Literate deaf culture in the US involves two languages, ASL and written English. In France it is FSL and written French. If the point of requiring a foreign language is to become literate in a different culture, and ASL meets that requirement in the US, then the reverse should be true. An American deaf student should be able to count English as a foreign language. This makes no sense because they are already literate in English.
A deaf student who knows ASL could become literate in French by learning written French without learning FSL. However, if a deaf student wanted to understand literate deaf culture in France, they would need to learn FSL and written French. Similarly, if a French deaf person wanted to understand American deaf culture, they would need to learn both ASL and written English. This is the because the conventions, limits, constraints and history of written English is what literate deaf culture in the US is based upon.
This is surely unfair in one sense. Deaf people could have developed a sign language from which a written language arose. However, since there has been no language group with a majority of deaf people, they have had to learn two languages, sign, and the written language of the speaking majority.
You could look at this the other way and say that sign languages of the various spoken languages (ASL, FSL) etc are versions of American English, French, etc, but his is precisely what most analysts of ASL reject. But the reason they have to do this is because we make the unconscious assumption that literate culture has to be built on the spoken and written versions of the same language.
The purpose of a college education is to become more literate. Because of this, foreign language offerings have always been written languages. An American speaking student who studies ASL is studying a different signed language but will still be studying the literature of American English. If they study FSL, and French they will be studying a different signed language and a different literature (French) hence become literate in another language.
This is unfair to deaf people. It is unfair in two ways. Deaf people have to learn two languages to start with and once they enter the university, an institution fundamentally focused on literacy, they'll have to learn two more to understand another deaf culture. In addition, their fellow students cannot learn ASL to become literate in American English. The study of ASL by an American student is logically the equivalent of the study of another non written language.
Is anyone familiar with a similar debate about Braille? It shares a spoken version with the majority but has a different written version. Is Braille a felt version of the English alphabet, grammar etc or does it have a different written language for spoken English?

It just occurred to me that it is literally impossible to be literate in any sign language. One may be literate only in a written language.

One maybe conversant in ASL or conversant in English.

Speaking of languages ...
 

The View From Norway: Bilingual Ed

BY JOHN McWHORTER
November 9, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/43192

As the election returns are coming in, I am writing from the Arctic Circle.

I'm in Tromso, Norway, an extremely northern city whose university has me doing some lectures on linguistics.

I am keeping a close eye on the congressional elections. However, I am very, very far from home. In the existence I am living this week, as a linguist, I am struck by how different the Norwegian language here is from the Norwegian in books.

It reminds me that it was 10 years ago that Oakland's school board was putting together their resolution to "acknowledge" Black English in the schoolroom when teaching black children. The country erupted in jokes about teaching in "jive," but this was not what the Oakland school board meant. The resolution reflected a sentiment that had been kicking around for years, that the reason black schoolchildren so often have trouble learning to read is the difference between Standard English and the comfort dialect they learn at home.

So the idea was that the black student used to saying "I ain't got none and they be tellin' me it be my fault" is confused to encounter on the page "I don't have any and they tell me it is my fault." To wit, the claim was that black children would have an easier time learning to read if they encountered their home dialect on the page first, and then were ushered into Standard English as a "separate" variety.

On its face, this was not crazy. Too often, in practice, bilingual education has been a disaster in America. However, the problem has been one of implementation, not of philosophy. Worldwide, it has been shown endlessly that children learn to read more quickly when first taught in their native language and are gently transitioned into the dominant one.

The question is whether black students' reading scores were really due to their not being treated like Chicano students. That is where my sojourn to Norway comes in.

Here in Tromso, the local dialect is so different from the standard language that it leaves someone who thought he had mastered Norwegian frustrated. "What" is ka instead of hva. A word you use every two seconds like "I" is æ instead of jeg. Things like this go on and on, and they represent the exact same kind of difference as exists between Black English and the New York Review of Books — not a different language, but different all the same.

Yet Tromso schoolchildren here are not taught in the local dialect, nor are they given readers in the local dialect and "ushered into" the standard. No one has any problem with them using the local dialect at home or in the schoolyard. But in class, standard Norwegian is the order of the day.

And they learn it.

In fact, there was an experiment here a long time ago, where students given local dialect materials learned to read a little faster than students who were taught with standard materials. A little faster, that is. But for any number of reasons not much came of that, and overall, there is no educational crisis in Tromso or anywhere else in Norway.

Maybe it would be superlatively ideal if all Norwegian students were taught in their home dialects — of which there are dozens. But the expense that would entail is not seen to justify giving up a system which works fine anyway.

In the same way, a few studies have shown that black children sometimes learn to read a little faster when first given Black English materials. But the legions of black Americans of all walks of life who have done just fine without "Ebonics" tutelage suggests that this approach might be certainly ideal — but hardly necessary.

Many think that the fact that Black English carries a stigma as "bad English" makes it a different case from places like Norway. The idea seems to be that black students of a certain demographic resist Standard English because of a feeling that it's "not their party," and that we are in the dark about methods of teaching them to read.

Yet from 1967 to 1977, the Department of Education sponsored a study called Project Follow-Through, which focused on lower-income (re: mostly black and brown) children. "Holistic" and "creative" reading programs stressing self-esteem and the like were tested against a rigorous, good old-fashioned program stressing basic skills.

The results resoundingly showed that the basic-skills methods work very well, while the more tutti-frutti ones do not.

Yet the Ebonics controversy proceeded as if this project had never been done. Sadly, the visceral appeal of treating black children as "denied their rights as bilinguals" trumped teaching them to read via a method shown conclusively to work. Education schools year after year produce teachers unaware that, as it were, penicillin was discovered decades ago.

Time zones mean that my deadline is too early to know how well the Democrats have done. But to the extent that they continue letting the teachers' unions pass in pretending Project Follow-Through never happened, they are unworthy of the votes they got from anyone truly concerned with the state of education for the disadvantaged.

Mr. McWhorter is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Precisely my point.

The article you posted is about a similar kind of situation that deaf people find themselves in. Do deaf people have any more problem learning how to read than hearing people? Do they 'sound out' words or is there an alternative process whereby the written word is translated into a non-verbal sign before it is 'read'? If deaf people require non-standard techniques to be taught to read, then perhaps Ebonics children need non-standard techniques but I'm betting they dont.

Hi all,
saw the thread title and thought i'd add my 2c, but im thinking the recent posts have deviated somewhat..
2 of my cousins in England are deaf/mute. From about the age of 7 or 8 i was instructed in basic English SL. One uses both hands, the right hand being the more dominant. The 5 vowels are the tips of your thumb & fingers. You make the shape of each letter of the alphabet with 1 or both hands (most letters are strikingly similar to their written form). There are signs for words/actions that do not necessitate the spelling of each word letter by letter (eg if you kinda chop at your right hip, with your right hand, this is the signword for "work"). My cousin John would give me fotocopies of these to learn, so i could converse better ie quicker. When they were younger, they would come over and stay during summer holidays. John went to the Deaf Club in Dublin and found that Irish sign language is all done with just one hand, so i guess it does vary from country to country, even those who have English as their main language

What do the Irish and English think about their sign languages in relation to the written languages they use? Do they think of Irish signing + written English as one language or two separate languages? I'm curious as to whether the current US view that they are two separate languages is unique to the US or widespread amongst deaf people/signers around the world. Does your cousin John have an opinion on this? Is sign language taught in schools and universities as a separate langauge alongside French, German etc. Does your cousin think it should be?

Kerry, sadly John was killed by a DD over 10years ago (DD overtook a truck and slammed into John on his way to work. He was a beautiful guy.) His sister Louise also signs, her husband too, though he has partial hearing & speech, and their little girl, 4, is fluent in both) Louise was always a much better lip reader than John, dont know if some people are more inclined to lipreading or not..
I couldnt answer whether or not Louise thinks of them as 2 seperate languages, though its an interesting point, and i will ask her next time i see her. AFAIK in Ireland, sign is not taught in mainstream schools (as opposed to a school for hearing impaired), and with regard to college/3rd level/uni i would imagine it only to be taught within courses specifically relating to deaf education.
I am glad for having learned sign (even just my basic level), i would consider it an extension of one's native tounge, be it that you come from Ireland, Spain or China.
How does one converse with someone who doesnt speak ones language (the fact that other person can or cannot talk is irrelevant) ?
By gesticulating, making shape of an object with your hands, or making a noise replicating the sound

Tony

*** Language is for communicating... ***
 

Signing is a substitute for speaking and visa-versa. It all depends on what your situation is.

The French will sign in French-ese...whatever gets the job done. It's not a language onto its own, it's a method of translating thought into substance.

If the signer was Canadian, would it be considered Canadian-signage? Nope, just a deaf Canadian "speaking" to the "outside world" of audible Canadians.

If a Spanish person, standing next to deaf and audible Canadians knew his version of "sign" only, would he be able to understand and converse with either of the Canadians, let alone a French, or even an English speaker and signer? Unless he was trained in the Canadian, French and English language and signage, nope.

Without sounding rude, I see this discussion of trying to equate "Sign" as a separate, and equal, level of language like English, Spanish, Cantonese, French, etc. as mis-guided. It's only a method of communication in the native language of the proximity of the user. You must first understand and comprehend the spoken to use the sign. But remember, depending on the individual, it may seem that everyone is "adopting" his lanquage to their own.

Perception thus becomes the reality.

Here's one more, very base way, of looking at this...

K9 patrols have dogs that relate to their handlers with "code" or "language" - i.e.: Commands are given in a non-native lanquage. In our area, some handlers use either German or Cantonese. You all know the reason...so the dogs don't get confused by contradictory commands from the perp. (And I thought the dog knew his master's voice above all else!) Dog-ese isn't a legitimate language...yet.

One final thought (just a little off topic)...my old room-mate's (from college) future wife had over 6-years of classroom French before graduating from her area school, then an additional 4 years in college. During her Senior year, she spent one semester in France - she called while whe was there and said she felt like she was the "ugly American" because she didn't understand half of what they were saying over there. Most of the folks spoke a "slang" that took her quite awhile to get the hang of. She also mentioned that "The French are pretty rude when they think you think you know how to speak their language and you don't." That was a direct quote!

Them be fighting words nowadays, apparently. At least in some academic contexts.

I still think the act of signing is the same as the act of writing... Phenomenologically speaking of course.

We can feel the road through the steering wheel. We can give a blind man a cane and he can feel through that cane hardness, size, shape, etc. He's not touching anything, yet he feels, and talks about what he feels, in the same terms he would use if he were touching the object with his hands.

Can you trace the alphabet in the air? Of course. Imagine now that you're writing on a chalkboard, then all of a sudden the chalk you're holding and the chalkboard itself disappears. You're writing, just not recording anything.

Imagine in the future that some bio engineer has figured out how to attach a device to your hands which mirrors your signing and records it on a piece of paper. A lot more complicated than a piece of chalk, but possible in principle. The scribbles need not look like ASL at all, nevertheless, these scribbles would still be alphabet, after all, "tree" doesn't look anything like a tree.

In one sense I might agree. Would the same thing apply to speaking? Could a bio engineer attach a device to our tongues, lips etc and have our words directly recorded onto a piece of paper. If so, speaking is the same as writing. This would be obvious to lipreaders.
Of course, the difference is that there is no independent long term storage device for writing of this kind.
I'm interested in the differences between spoken or signed language and written language. For instance, what level of mathematics is possible if a culture only has a spoken or signed language? It's hard to know for sure since there's little record of spoken only languages but I've never heard of an oral culture developing calculus. What it is it about written language that allows for this? Could it be something as simple as less brain space devoted to storage (memorization) once an external storage device is available? Is it that written language allows for quick and easy re-reading for analysis? Or could it be that written language allows for deeds which permit private property which in turn allows the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a class which has the leisure to develop abstract thought and ultimately calculus.

*** And my point was... ***
 

Let me give a very BASE example:

I grew up out in the "sticks" ... one family living out there with us was Spanish. The kids taught my brothers and sisters how to cuss in Spanish. The ONLY word I could remember was "caca" (S**t in Spanish.).

NOW, to the other non-neighbors, when "caca" was said in their presence, they didn't know what it meant (NOT UNTIL we wore the "crap" out of it! :P ). Now, how would a deaf, non-Spanish, person, able to "read" lips, be able to sign the word and understand what it meant? They wouldn't be able to until the word was "explained" to them - both the signee and audiblee.

Now, hypothetically speaking (or "signing"), if an island of completely deaf individuals were evolving, without the influence (rightly or wrongly) from the "verbally fortunate" - would the "audibles" be able to understand them? Not until there was chance to "intermingle" and transfer the "knowledge" of letters and meanings to and fro.

Again, only in the above case, would "signage" be considered a language, in its purest form.

Outside of that example, signage is another means by which to communicate in a native language.

Until the language becomes the chief, or only, way of communications, it's one of many "appendages" to the communications chain.

In any language.