COVID19 is one more reason to learn ASL. Supplement moist speeches with gestures.

[Hey Please]

Age Sex Location. American Sign Language.

At a time like this, we can all appreciate the Italians who have mastered the art of cursing silently. But ASL is so much more than that.

• It's greatest strength lies in using entire body (well mostly the upper) to convey messages from a distance.
• From my lessons thus far, it also does not suffer from the myriad complications of typical language's grammar structures.
• It's a more condensed form of messaging in some ways. People/young whippersnappers who are used to emojis and memes would understand the value of this language very well.
• It is a great way to boost your dexterity over time for finer muscle co-ordination in your fingers. Your partner will certainly appreciate you for it
• It is allows for better reading body of language
• It allows folks to communicate unabated in loud environments
• It opens the door towards communicating with a segment of population that was once not possible for you. That dating pool just a tad wider m'ladys et m'lads et m'non binaries.
• It is an asset for communicating with your partner or another loved one whilst technically still enforcing "Silent treatment"
• You can engage in covert ops in complete silence
• It will make you look like a ninjutsu user, ye nerds

It will take time to learn and it is easy to forget without practice. Practice, practice, practice. This language is the quintessential poster child for Muscle Memory. However, in the current day and age of social distancing, it feels only natural to want to learn to communicate efficiently without the need for spoken words.

I am learning it atm (dropped off of the bandwagon twice due to laziness but hoping to stick it out this time).

The two YT channels I do prefer to learn from are:

ASL Meredith

Signed with Heart - Ashley (her Instagram )

If you know ASL, I'd love to know how long it took for you to learn it and what best practices you adopted or the what kind help you found to attain your sign language proficiency.

 

[Deleted member 2840]

It's been quite dry recently, so I would welcome some moist speeches

 

[Video Games Are Dumb]

moist speeches
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

[5taquitos]

As soon as this is over I'm getting as moist as I can get.

 

[Deleted member 12790]

Is American Sign Language used world wide?

 

[naib]

I love the sign for bullshit

 

[Inki]

Is American Sign Language used world wide?

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Primarily in America.. There is German Sign Language, Spanish Sign Language, etc. The American means.. US. There can even be regional variants (accents/slang) from 1 large deaf population to another.

Check out this list of Sign Language Variants.

And yes.. more moist speeches please!

 

[Deleted member 12790]

Primarily in America.. There is German Sign Language, Spanish Sign Language, etc. The American means.. US. There can even be regional variants (accents/slang) from 1 large deaf population to another.

And yes.. more moist speeches please!

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So American Sign Language doesn't even mean Canada or Mexico?

 

[Hey Please]

Is American Sign Language used world wide?

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Not exactly, according this article there are between 138-300 different type of sign languages. If we are doing based on population alone then Chinese and Indo-Pakistan ones would be leading. That said, for english speaking nations, I'd reckon ASL can be understood to be one of the more widespread ones in terms of applicability.

So American Sign Language doesn't even mean Canada or Mexico?

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Afaik Canada does use ASL.

 

[wandering]

So American Sign Language doesn't even mean Canada or Mexico?

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ASL is used in English-speaking Canada; Francophone communities have a different version.

Mexico uses its own sign language.

 

[Inki]

So American Sign Language doesn't even mean Canada or Mexico?

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Think of the Variants as different languages.. just like French and German to a native English speaker. The following best answers your question.

"The differences between ASL and English are evidence that ASL was not invented or modeled on English, but rather developed within the American Deaf community. In the same way, other sign languages have developed in other Deaf communities. "

 

[Deleted member 12790]

Is ASL a rote mapping of english? Like, is it a 1:1 representation of how english is spoken, same syntax and grammatical structures and such? And similarly, if so, is that why there are so many dialects of sign language?

 

[wandering]

Is ASL a rote mapping of english? Like, is it a 1:1 representation of how english is spoken, same syntax and grammatical structures and such? And similarly, if so, is that why there are so many dialects of sign language?

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No, sign languages are naturally evolving full languages with their own lexicons and rules.

 

[Deleted member 12790]

No, sign languages are naturally evolving full languages with their own lexicons and rules.

Click to shrink...

thats super interesting, I've formally learned 3 languages in my life (english, spanish, and japanese), so the process of learning a new language and the nuances of them are fascinating to me. Can you give me a basic example of some sort of grammatical difference between spoken english and ASL? Just as an example?

 

[Hey Please]

Is ASL a rote mapping of english? Like, is it a 1:1 representation of how english is spoken, same syntax and grammatical structures and such? And similarly, if so, is that why there are so many dialects of sign language?

Click to shrink...

No. As stated in the OP, the messages are more condensed. To avoid confusion, I really recommend watching the first couple of lessons in the provided links.

 

[Hey Please]

thats super interesting, I've formally learned 3 languages in my life (english, spanish, and japanese), so the process of learning a new language and the nuances of them are fascinating to me. Can you give me a basic example of some sort of grammatical difference between spoken english and ASL? Just as an example?

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So as an example when asking, "What is your name?" would translate into:

*Point at the person whose name you want to know with index finger*
*Do the sign for Name*
*Do the sign for What whilst simultaneously raising an eyebrow to convey that it is a query*

 

[Deleted member 12790]

So as an example when asking, "What is your name?" would translate into:

*Point at the person whose name you want to know with index finger*
*Do the sign for Name*
*Do the sign for What whilst simultaneously raising an eyebrow to convey that it is a query*

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thanks very much for this. This actually sounds a lot like japanese regarding how fluidly subjects are treated.

 

[Krakatoa]

I've always wondered how do you sign Trumps word salad? Half the time it's not even English.

 

[Hey Please]

thanks very much for this. This actually sounds a lot like japanese regarding how fluidly subjects are treated.

Click to shrink...

Correct me if I am mistaken but isn't Kanji characters entire words unto themselves? If so then it makes sense because ASL gestures generally denote Subject and Action with the verbs being inherently implied (at least as far as I have learned in basics).

 

[Stowaway Silfer]

• It's greatest strength lies in using entire body (well mostly the upper) to convey messages from a distance.
• From my lessons thus far, it also does not suffer from the myriad complications of typical language's grammar structures.
• It's a more condensed form of messaging in some ways. People/young whippersnappers who are used to emojis and memes would understand the value of this language very well.
• It is a great way to boost your dexterity over time for finer muscle co-ordination in your fingers. Your partner will certainly appreciate you for it
• It is allows for better reading body of language
• It allows folks to communicate unabated in loud environments
• It opens the door towards communicating with a segment of population that was once not possible for you. That dating pool just a tad wider m'ladys et m'lads et m'non binaries.
• It is an asset for communicating with your partner or another loved one whilst technically still enforcing "Silent treatment"

Click to shrink...

• You can engage in covert ops in complete silence
• It will make you look like a ninjutsu user, ye nerds

Click to shrink...

I have actually been curious about sign language for a while. Might try to learn it one of these days.

 

[Inki]

thats super interesting, I've formally learned 3 languages in my life (english, spanish, and japanese), so the process of learning a new language and the nuances of them are fascinating to me. Can you give me a basic example of some sort of grammatical difference between spoken english and ASL? Just as an example?

Click to shrink...

I can only go off a friend of mine (who is deaf and taught me enough to be conversational with him) - he didn't use conjunctions or prepositions.. at all.. So for instance..
I may speak : I'm out of gas so I can't follow you, you may want to ask John.
He would sign something like. No gas, no follow, ask John (if John was there, he would just point instead of signing his name).
VERY condensed. So much more efficient imo. I loved how quickly you can get your point across. Full conversations in 3 minutes instead of 15.
Slow was probably my most used sign.. not slow down.. just slow.

 

[Deleted member 12790]

Correct me if I am mistaken but isn't Kanji characters entire words unto themselves? If so then it makes sense because ASL gestures generally denote Subject and Action with the verbs being inherently implied (at least as far as I have learned in basics).

Click to shrink...

Kanji usually denotes a noun, verb, or adjective. They're the roots of words, there are other types of characters in japanese, namely Hiragana, that are used to conjugate kanji. I.e. make it past tense, make it a wish, make negative, etc.

But lots, and lots of japanese is implied or inferred from previous context. The word particle "so" in japanese is very often used, which basically means (pardon the word salad here): "the subject/object of action/etc of this sentence is the same subject/object of action/etc as what we were previously discussing." It's a weird particle to explain in english, because there isn't really an equivalent. When trying to do very accurate 1:1 translations of japanese, it sometimes gets translated as "about that..." with a trailing ellipses, because it's implying previous context.

That's what I meant by it reminds me of japanese. ASL sounds really fun to try and pick up, this topic is interesting, thanks!

 

[Hey Please]

Kanji usually denotes a noun, verb, or adjective. They're the roots of words, there are other types of characters in japanese, namely Hiragana, that are used to conjugate kanji. I.e. make it past tense, make it a wish, make negative, etc.

But lots, and lots of japanese is implied or inferred from previous context. The word particle "so" in japanese is very often used, which basically means (pardon the word salad here): "the subject/object of action/etc of this sentence is the same subject/object of action/etc as what we were previously discussing." It's a weird particle to explain in english, because there isn't really an equivalent. When trying to do very accurate 1:1 translations of japanese, it sometimes gets translated as "about that..." with a trailing ellipses, because it's implying previous context.

That's what I meant by it reminds me of japanese. ASL sounds really fun to try and pick up, this topic is interesting, thanks!

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Thank you for the explanation.

 

[wandering]

thats super interesting, I've formally learned 3 languages in my life (english, spanish, and japanese), so the process of learning a new language and the nuances of them are fascinating to me. Can you give me a basic example of some sort of grammatical difference between spoken english and ASL? Just as an example?

Click to shrink...

OP gave a specific example, but more generally, sign languages benefit from more flexible iconicity and spatial context, allowing in some ways for even more dynamic methods of expression. But yeah, a sentence translated from spoken English might not keep the same grammatical structure. ASL doesn't use "be" verbs or articles, for example. There's a lot of stuff on the Wikipedia page:

American Sign Language grammar - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[AlexBasch]

Yeah, I no longer greet cashiers and I'd wish they stopped talking to me in the store, even if they have a mask.

Sure, it makes up for awkward interactions when I flash my debit card to signal I'm doing cashless payment, but I'm not risking shit. Learning a hand language would be better and helpful in the long run.

 

[.Detective.]

Hey Please - I just wanted to say I love the seamless use of moist here in the title. Such a great thread, comrade.

 

[Hey Please]

Yeah, I no longer greet cashiers and I'd wish they stopped talking to me in the store, even if they have a mask.

Sure, it makes up for awkward interactions when I flash my debit card to signal I'm doing cashless payment, but I'm not risking shit. Learning a hand language would be better and helpful in the long run.

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I smile. I think that more people need to feel a level of comfort in these extraordinary circumstances where cashiers are technically at a higher risk of contracting virus given their proximity to and frequency of shoppers.

Hey Please - I just wanted to say I love the seamless use of moist here in the title. Such a great thread, comrade.

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Merci beacoup, herr comrade 🥂

OP gave a specific example, but more generally, sign languages benefit from more flexible iconicity and spatial context, allowing in some ways for even more dynamic methods of expression. But yeah, a sentence translated from spoken English might not keep the same grammatical structure. ASL doesn't use "be" verbs or articles, for example. There's a lot of stuff on the Wikipedia page:

American Sign Language grammar - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Click to shrink...

Thank you. Are you personally proficient in ASL or another sign language? As per OP, I'd like to know if you wish to share. Danke.

 

[wandering]

Thank you. Are you personally proficient in ASL or another sign language? As per OP, I'd like to know if you wish to share. Danke.

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Oh no, I'm not proficient unfortunately, I just have a passing interest in linguistics and semiotics.

 

[Futabaisthebest<3]

This whole tweet is pretty much self-explanatory.

 

[Fulminator]

• It will make you look like a ninjutsu user, ye nerds

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say no more fam

 

[Hey Please]

Oh no, I'm not proficient unfortunately, I just have a passing interest in linguistics and semiotics.

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TIL Semiotics is the study of symbols and signs and their usage. Thanks

This whole tweet is pretty much self-explanatory.

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Thanks for this.