[HN Gopher] The Covid Zoom Boom Is Reshaping Sign Language
___________________________________________________________________
The Covid Zoom Boom Is Reshaping Sign Language
Author : bbirnbaum
Score : 157 points
Date : 2021-02-26 12:00 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
| CivBase wrote:
| Perhaps someone on HN knows the answer to a question I've had for
| years now. Why use sign language on platforms where text is
| accessible?
|
| I've wondered this since I first saw a TV broadcast with a signer
| off to the side. Isn't that what closed captions are for? Surely
| it's faster to read text captions than the gestures of some low-
| res recording of a human stuck in a tiny box in the corner of the
| screen.
|
| Video chat platforms like Zoom almost always have a text chat
| feature. Although at least for those I can see how it might be
| faster and more personable for many to sign than type.
| hibbelig wrote:
| > _Why use sign language on platforms where text is
| accessible?_
|
| I'm not an expert, but I suppose that text is a foreign
| language to those born deaf. They might prefer to communicate
| in their native language.
|
| (But if someone has lost their hearing after learning to read
| and write, then it would be different.)
| ecpottinger wrote:
| Because I have gone to see films in a number of languages I do
| not understand but they were sub-titled. I can't remember going
| to one that was not anime, and then not hearing someone
| complaining about having to read the dialogue.
|
| These films (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French and German) all
| clearly had posters at the theaters saying they were sub-titles
| and yet there was always someone demanding the movie be in
| English.
|
| Also I think a number of people have poor/slow reading skills
| that they can't bluff about when someone uses signing.
| dnndev wrote:
| A few reasons: 1) You loose facial expression communication 2)
| Its slower to digest (small/slow text scrolling across bottom
| of screen) 3) Its harder to learn to read as the process is
| aided by phonetics
| bskrobisz wrote:
| It's faster to read text than to listen to someone speak, yet
| speech remains popular. There are aspects of communication
| which are not easily replicated in text -- sign languages do
| not lack the semantic information that is provided in speech by
| the tone, pitch, and rhythm of voice which is not, for the most
| part, reflected directly in grammar (in English, anyways).
| These components take other forms (expression and aspect,
| primarily) in ASL.
| CivBase wrote:
| > It's faster to read text than to listen to someone speak,
| yet speech remains popular.
|
| I suspect there are a few reason for that beyond the
| explanations you gave.
|
| 1) Speech is faster to produce than text. Professional
| captioners are among the few who can challenge that. For
| everyone else, it's usually faster to give a speech or say
| what's on your mind than to type it all out.
|
| 2) Speech frees up the eyes. My vision is usually in greater
| demand than my hearing, so I prefer to avoid committing it to
| a single activity for a long time if possible. Unfortunately,
| that's not an option for those without hearing.
|
| 3) Speech is easier to attribute to individuals. I can
| determine who said something with minimal effort just by
| listening to the sound of their voice.
|
| 4) Speech is more immersive for narrative content. Movies and
| TV shows feel more believable when characters are talking
| with each other face-to-face like they would in real life.
|
| Unfortunately, a signer in the corner can't make up for any
| of those factors.
| bskrobisz wrote:
| I think these are reasonable. I should highlight, though,
| that 1, 3 and 4 are true for sign languages as well -- 3
| and 4 doubly so (given how large a component individual
| expressions and gestures play in communication without
| sound).
| CivBase wrote:
| > 1, 3 and 4 are true for sign languages as well
|
| That's true so long as the speaker is the one signing,
| which is probably true in the context of video calls but
| probably not in the context of TV.
| SamBam wrote:
| I believe 4 is. At least, in the sense that intent,
| rhythm and emotion can be conveyed by a signing
| translator better than text can.
| toast0 wrote:
| Closed captions aren't universally available, and live captions
| are often pretty awful (captions for recorded content are often
| fairly awful).
|
| I recall seeing interpretters on TV during special broadcasts a
| lot, but then they were mostly replaced by open captions or
| (presumably) closed captions as captioning became generally
| available. I'd guess there's a bigger pool of skilled
| captioners than skilled interpretters, but it's also a lot
| easier to find someone on staff who can type fast to caption in
| a pinch.
|
| All that said, I do see some very special events with
| interpretters still, and I apprechiate that, even though I
| don't sign.
| flerchin wrote:
| 1. The captions usually suck 2. Would you mind if they just
| shut off the audio?
| CivBase wrote:
| As someone who watches subbed TV and movies frequently, it
| wouldn't particularly bother me. I prefer audio in my native
| language so I have the luxury of being able to take my eyes
| off the screen for a moment now and then, but that's not
| really an option when it comes to sign language.
| flerchin wrote:
| That's a good point! Sign Language is the native language
| for Deaf People, not English Text.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| In addition to what others have said, text encodes oral
| language well but is not necessarily a good fit for sign
| languages. I guess it might be like writing a non-Latin
| scripted language using Latin letters?
| blamestross wrote:
| Many people who rely on ASL are illiterate. Turns out a
| phonetic portrayal of language they don't know isn't the
| easiest to learn, assuming they have the support to do it. Sign
| language exists because it is the best tool for the job.
|
| http://www.deaf-culture-online.com/aslnotguilty.html
| dhosek wrote:
| For the same reasons people choose to use audio on platforms
| where text is available.
| bluGill wrote:
| Because the native language of the deaf is sign language.
| Spoken language has very little in common with sign language.
| Text is a written form of a spoken language for those who hear
| so it isn't too hard to learn. For someone who can't hear it is
| completely different from anything.
|
| Imagine the time where you knew something of a second language,
| but were not fluent yet (some of you may have never tried, but
| most people have done at least a little of a foreign language),
| watching a program in that language with subtitles in that
| language. That is what text subtitles are for a lot of deaf.
| diydsp wrote:
| Asl is actually a diff language than English. Surprisingly, ma
| y ppl can understand the asl but not the textual English. For
| many people English is a 2nd language they understand less well
| than asl.
| cush wrote:
| The simple answer is that language can't be captured in text
| alone.
|
| Think of how expressive language is. You can say the same
| sentence 3 different ways, where the real meaning is trapped in
| the tone, intonation, pitch, and emotion.
|
| Think of how dynamic and expressive the word "fuck" is...
| Probably the most versatile and complex word in the English
| language.
|
| Or just look at the [national
| anthem](https://www.today.com/popculture/asl-performer-steals-
| show-d...)
| gugagore wrote:
| I think the most interesting part of this is the lack of shared
| space in video conferencing, and how it gets in the way of ASL's
| use of space. As the article mentions, many verbs in ASL are
| inflected ("conjugated") according to semantic roles (roughly
| "subject" / "object" (not exactly, because passive voice)).
|
| "I ask you" and "I help you" can each be signed as a single
| entity, where the motion (starting at me, and moving in your
| direction) carries the information about the pronouns.
|
| At the very least, the layout on each person's screen could be
| consistent so that person A is always at location 1, and so on.
| That might restore some sense of shared space.
|
| This shows up as a pain-point even in a spoken-language setting.
| If everyone is introducing themselves, what order do they go in?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _This shows up as a pain-point even in a spoken-language
| setting. If everyone is introducing themselves, what order do
| they go in?_
|
| On team meetings, we usually go clockwise by the order of
| pictures on the screen of the PM. That order is both seemingly
| non-deterministic and persistent over weeks - we have a little
| in-joke where we try to game the sequence by joining early or
| late, aiming to be sorted last. We haven't been able to figure
| out a pattern for it, though; it seems MS Teams sorts pictures
| in whatever way it feels this month. So for instance, whether I
| join before or after our PM, this month, I'm the first in the
| standup queue. Last month, I was the but-last.
|
| Personally, I'd love if there was a shared ordering assigned
| and windows were simply numbered, and the numbers were
| displayed on screen. Would help both sign and voice users.
| christkv wrote:
| Have anyone done life transcription of sign language ?
| _nalply wrote:
| In the last ten years there was an endless stream of hopeful
| projects that failed silently. It's a very difficult problem.
| iav wrote:
| The best part of Zoom for deaf people is the automatic
| captioning.
|
| There is one big downside of using generic video chat for signing
| - it's usually optimized for clear audio, not clear video. When
| the connection gets weak, Zoom will drop frames but try to
| preserve audio. For the deaf, dropping audio is of course not a
| problem but dropping frames means they miss a key word in the
| sentence.
| medstrom wrote:
| This could be fixed if pinning the interpreter's video feed on
| your screen gave it priority.
| _nalply wrote:
| There are other problems with video for hearing people.
|
| One example is WhatsApp providing an audio record button in the
| lower right corner of the screen. I always keep hitting the
| button by mistake. If I had a user script I would remove that
| button.
|
| Another one is recording videos. If there were an embarrasing
| noise like a fart I would be obliviously send the video to
| someone hearing.
| sneak wrote:
| Does anyone know of a good web based videoconferencing system
| that does 1080p or 4K, at close to 30fps? Ideally it wouldn't
| require some big subscription plan, either.
|
| Meet maxes out at 720p (it's that or 320p) and what seems like a
| single-digit frame rate. Zoom doesn't seem much better.
|
| I don't know sign language but I have a lot of bandwidth (and am
| wired) and I'm tired of calls optimized for 1-5mbps wifi. Even
| calls that are primarily for audio could benefit from higher
| resolution/framerate video, I feel.
| rasz wrote:
| https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/obs-studio-send-an-ud...
| kevincox wrote:
| Jitsi can support 1080p at 30fps, I'm not sure if it goes
| higher. However you may need to host your own as meet.jit.si
| has some quality restrictions (although it is pretty good
| looking for general use). Also note that most laptops only come
| with a shitty 720p webcam so unless you have a nice camera you
| won't see much improvement.
| leesalminen wrote:
| We bought the Logitech gear for a Zoom Room years ago for our
| office. It was a 4K camera and participants in meetings would
| frequently remark on the high quality video stream. Of course,
| we also had a symmetric gigabit fiber connection so that
| probably helped.
| ihuman wrote:
| Discord supports 1080p@30fps screen sharing in DMs if you have
| Nitro classic (and 60fps in servers), but I can't tell if that
| also applies to your camera.
| bombcar wrote:
| Microsoft Teams supports live subtitles - I've not tried it but
| it looks like it could be interesting.
| https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-live-captions...
| jimktrains2 wrote:
| The autogenerated ones in Google Meet can be quite amusing at
| times.
| simion314 wrote:
| I dread the day when Google/Youtube will start blocking
| accounts based on what their Speech to Text thinks someone is
| speaking.
| erk__ wrote:
| Well they already use it to decide if a video can be
| monetized so it is already happening in some sense.
|
| https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6162278?visit_id=
| 6...
| gambiting wrote:
| They already do. There was the case just the other day
| where someone explaining chess strategy had their video
| removed for "racial violence" when talking about.....white
| and black sides of the chess board. Obviously google knows
| what was said thanks to the speech to text translation.
| simion314 wrote:
| Yeah, but I was thinking at people with non standard
| accents, there a large number of people outside US that
| make Youtube videos and their accent is tricking the AI
| and the automatic subs will contain random words. The AI
| will have a big bias against non US creators or even US
| people with an accent that is not popular in the Google
| training data.
| shawnz wrote:
| It's not confirmed that's actually why agadmator's
| channel was removed. That was just a theory
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Still, whatever in that video triggered the detector,
| that such ban happens at all is worrying. This, plus
| Google's penchant to ban you across the board for a
| perceived violation in one service[0], means you
| absolutely cannot trust Google with your speech.
|
| --
|
| [0] - Examples abound; my favourite was the great many
| people who got banned after a YouTube livestreamer asked
| them to vote by typing in color emojis in the chat, and
| as they did so, YouTube spam detector banned their Google
| accounts.
| timvdalen wrote:
| Relevant discussion from earlier in the week:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26218476
| mercurywells wrote:
| English is not always the preferred language. An user of ASL
| may not necessarily be as proficent in English.
|
| The government version of Teams still does not have live
| subtitles last I checked.
| chaorace wrote:
| That's a terrifying sentence: "the government version of
| Teams". Out of curiosity, what makes it different?
| bluGill wrote:
| I would guess that the government doesn't take the latest
| updates vs having a different program called teams. The
| government may also refuse to install some plugins.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| More importantly, the "government version of <x>" is
| often hosted on something separate from the commercial
| version. That is, 20 companies all using MS Teams may all
| be actually communicating with a common (or barely
| segregated) backend. The government version is often
| running on a distinct suite of servers that only the
| government version touches.
| jhbadger wrote:
| Yeah. There is also a government version of Zoom for
| similar reasons.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| That was spurred (accelerated? started?) by the various
| revelations of where Zoom data was going and the
| weaknesses in its security model when everyone was forced
| to work from home last year and the government heavily
| adopted Zoom as one solution. They couldn't continue
| using the commercial version and be compliant with
| government controls on communication.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| My guess? They don't want the content of their
| conversations to be processed and data mined by Microsoft.
| It's for the same reason myself and the teams I work with
| don't enable this feature in Teams, or in Google
| Hangouts/Meet/whatever, where I first saw it.
| vulcan01 wrote:
| Schools too have a different version: "the school version
| of Teams". What's terrifying about Microsoft tailoring
| their product to (very) large customer segments?
|
| (If you're wondering what my source is... I am a student
| and my school uses MS Teams).
| whoomp12342 wrote:
| I am suprised that Teams does not support multiple langauges
| bombcar wrote:
| Captions itself is very new, I assume more languages are
| coming (as an aside Zoom's machine transcribing works
| surprisingly well).
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Those seem like reasonable adaptations, but i think Zoom has
| missed an opportunity here, we all need some kind of sign
| language with video calls. Where is my "Yes", "No" button, or
| other instant ways to communicate common things without having to
| turn on the mic or type in chat ?
| yreg wrote:
| I know what you mean and you are right, but in our team we
| signal trivial stuff like yes/no with gestures, without turning
| on mics/interrupting speakers.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| - a lot of people do full-screen presentations (where they
| can't see others)
|
| - a lot of trivial interuptions are "can you see this?" ,
| "can you hear me" etc
| krallja wrote:
| Persistent Non-verbal Feedback ("Yes", "No", "Slower",
| "Faster") was added to the Zoom client on February 1.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| There's "hand up" in most video chat apps; I saw that in Jitsi
| first.
|
| Perhaps changing it to allow other emoticons ... ?
| jamesdwilson wrote:
| Curious about statistics, what percent of people speak sign
| language?
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Any signed language? Or a particular one?
| _nalply wrote:
| In Switzerland about one per mille or even less.
| bluGill wrote:
| What do you consider speak? I know one phase in each of French
| and Russian - though I'm sure my accent is so bad natives would
| have trouble understanding me. I can read Spanish, and produce
| simple sentences that are not memorized, but I'm not on the
| level of a conversation. So how many languages do you want to
| say I speak? You can creditably argue 1,2, or 4 from the above.
| flerchin wrote:
| Roughly 10% of Americans are hard of hearing. Unfortunately far
| fewer have learned sign language.
| Wohlf wrote:
| I assume that's because the majority of them are elderly, and
| have no desire to learn it.
| [deleted]
| mabbo wrote:
| Two quick misconceptions to call out for those less familiar with
| signed languages:
|
| 1. ASL is not just English with each word replaced with a sign.
| It's an incredibly complex language with different grammatical
| rules, some of which don't have English equivalents.
|
| 2. It's incredibly flexible. Many core grammar components will
| remain consistent, but often if you drive to another city, many
| words/signs will be different. But signers adapt to these changes
| quickly.
|
| Those two things make this article all the more interesting,
| because it's a great example of how the flexibility and unique
| properties of ASL allows for adaptation in circumstances like
| these strange times.
|
| Source: three years, almost a minor, in ASL in University. I'm no
| expert, but I truly enjoy the language.
| jeffwass wrote:
| I live in the UK and we have BSL (British Sign Language).
|
| It's absolutely bonkers that two fairly different sign
| languages exist for the same base spoken language.
|
| That said, BSL uses a lot of facial cues, not just hands and
| arms, to allow for a range expression. Eg puffing out your
| cheeks to accentuate certain words.
| cowboysauce wrote:
| > It's absolutely bonkers that two fairly different sign
| languages exist for the same base spoken language.
|
| Sign languages are not based off of spoken languages. Sign
| languages are languages with their own grammar and
| vocabulary. They are not a method of encoding spoken language
| like writing is. The history of Nicaraguan Sign Language is a
| great example of this. In the 70s the government of Nicaragua
| set up a school for the deaf focused on teaching its students
| to fingerspell Spanish. Instead, the students spontaneously
| created their own sign language.
| mabbo wrote:
| > It's absolutely bonkers that two fairly different sign
| languages exist for the same base spoken language
|
| Historically speaking, it's because of British snobbery,
| allegedly. This is how my ASL professor told us it at least.
|
| American Thomas Gallaudet went to the British school for the
| Deaf hoping to learn BSL, etc. But it was not long after the
| American Revolution and the British weren't very friendly and
| wouldn't help him. So he went to France and the French taught
| him (Old) French Sign Language. FSL became the basis of ASL,
| along with a number of local influences from Martha's
| Vineyard sign language (a small locally developed signed
| language).
|
| Even then, a friend of mine from university who is very hard
| of hearing and mostly signs told me that on a trip to Britain
| he met some British Deaf people at a bar and by the end of
| the night was mostly fluent. There's enough overlap and
| enough shared experience between Deaf people that one can
| learn very quickly.
|
| > That said, BSL uses a lot of facial cues, not just hands
| and arms, to allow for a range expression. Eg puffing out
| your cheeks to accentuate certain words.
|
| This is 100% common to all Signed languages. Facial cues are
| huge in ASL. Before class, not joking, I would practice in
| the mirror to warm myself up. My first ASL prof described it
| by saying that in English, you could read off each word like
| a robot, with no inflection or tone- and that would be the
| same as signing with just your hands.
| _nalply wrote:
| Thomas Gallaudet was accompanied by a French Deaf person,
| Laurent Clerc, who later died in Washington DC.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurent_Clerc
| michaelmior wrote:
| The use of facial expressions is also incredibly important in
| ASL.
| [deleted]
| tyingq wrote:
| I'd add in a third bullet noting that sign languages generally
| favor omitting unnecessary grammar, structure, etc.
|
| Like "I love you" as [love sign] -> [point at person you love].
|
| Or for example that "very" might exist in a signed language,
| but isn't often used. Just substituted with a more physically
| animated/vigorous version of the adjective, or added facial
| expression.
| _nalply wrote:
| The thing of omitting grammar: That's simply not true, I am
| sorry.
|
| Signed languages have a complex visual grammar. Words are
| inflected in many ways. I am a somewhat native speaker of the
| local signed language, and I sometimes discover that I
| uttered something I couldn't translate into German (the local
| oral language) without losing some meaning. This usually
| concerns dynamics, location and emotion. One example, I
| explained my son how to use the chairlift and how the
| chairlift will take off.
|
| Linguists have discovered that this is not pantomime. I
| forgot how they named the complicated movements but I
| remember it is something like a cluster of micro utterances.
|
| Your example of <<I love you>> is an example of inflection.
| You can vary this sign, to indicate a special dynamic, for
| example <<for a long time>>, <<slowly increasing in
| intensity>>, <<and you, too, sincerely and deeply>>, and many
| others.
| eindiran wrote:
| > Linguists have discovered that this is not pantomime.
|
| Here is a recent article that covers this in significant
| depth: https://www.glossa-
| journal.org/articles/10.5334/gjgl.499/
|
| The emergence of Nicaraguan Sign Language is a very
| revealing case is this regard: in much the same process as
| creolization, a sort of "pidgin" of home signs was
| transformed into a full sign language in a generation by
| "grammaticalizing" gestures and simple home signs from
| older children by the younger children. So it doesn't take
| long for a gesture to move right on Kendon's continuum
| until its fully "linguistic".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_sign
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creolization
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesture#Kendon's_continuum
| tyingq wrote:
| Perhaps there's a better way to characterize it? I'm
| talking about stuff like this for ASL:
|
| You look surprised => You look surprise
|
| They came here recently => Recent they come
| _nalply wrote:
| Maybe you meant glosses? Usually they are all written
| uppercased. However glosses often omit grammar or better
| said they aren't inflected because they can't capture
| raised eyebrows and other non-manual information.
| bluGill wrote:
| No, it is both. Grammar that is mandatory in English is
| optional in ASL. At the same time there is a lot of grammar
| in ASL that covers things that takes several sentences in
| English to get out.
|
| This isn't unusual. Even in spoken languages the required
| grammar are often different. Even in English some areas
| there are some contexts where "the" is mandatory in some
| geographical areas and not others. Linguists can give you a
| Phd if you want to study this more.
| _nalply wrote:
| > Grammar that is mandatory in English is optional in
| ASL.
|
| You can't relate the two languages like this. Sorry, this
| doesn't make sense. For example, ASL doesn't have
| articles, English doesn't have location dependent
| pronouns for people.
| eindiran wrote:
| You absolutely can do this (unless I am misunderstanding
| your point in which case, my apologies).
|
| That's why there are dozens of journals in things like
| linguistic typology and language variation and change.
| There are linguists whose entire careers have been
| generating a sort of conceptual mapping between the
| morphology, syntax and phonology of spoken languages to
| sign languages so that you can have sensible
| conversations about the typological relationship between
| a signed language and a spoken one.
|
| See the research of eg Diane Brentari at Chicago or Diane
| Lillo-Martin at UConn or Wendy Sandler at UT Austin.
| GordonS wrote:
| Some go even further - my daughter uses Makaton, which is a
| sign (and symbol) language designed for people that have
| difficulty communicating (for different reasons, including
| cognitive impairment and neurological problems). In general
| the idea is to only use as many signs as you need, although
| of course you can amend depending on who is communicating.
|
| As a point of note, Makaton is used at least a little at a
| lot of primary schools in Scotland (I would guess across the
| rest of the UK too), as a "supplementary language" for _all_
| kids.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makaton
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Here's another apparent misconception: sign language === ASL.
|
| There are many sign languages and many more dialects.
| bane wrote:
| There's a fascinating history on the spread of sign languages
| around the world to different deaf communities. IIR most sign
| languages derive from only a couple source languages and have
| very little relation to the local native language.
| jbergstroem wrote:
| Swedish sign language used to be my native language due to
| having a deaf sister. After relocating to another part of the
| world and discussing languages, it surprised me how many
| times I had (have) to explain how "sign language" is not a
| language.
|
| That said; it is amazing how many sign languages can come to
| similar conclusions due to "always trying to find the
| simplest way of explaining yourself".
| interestica wrote:
| > That said; it is amazing how many sign languages can come
| to similar conclusions due to "always trying to find the
| simplest way of explaining yourself".
|
| This is fascinating. Do you have an examples that stick
| out?
| rblatz wrote:
| So from my memory of ASL in college there was less worry
| about being rude or not offending. So if you were asked
| who someone was, you would start with their most
| identifiable feature. So if they are the only black guy
| in the room, or the most over weight you'd sign the black
| guy or the fat guy. Whereas in English it's basically a
| joke now that we'd use just about any other descriptor
| besides those.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Does the language have the sort of precision required to
| say something like "rotund gentleman" instead? If not I
| can't really blame someone from saying something in the
| most polite way a language practically allows.
| spijdar wrote:
| Based on my very limited experience and the posts above,
| I'd say sign languages don't really have the luxury of
| having many "synonyms" with slightly different
| connotations, at least in the same way you'd list words
| in a dictionary. jbergstroem mentions "always trying to
| find the simplest way of explaining yourself", so I think
| the idea is people just say things how they are, in
| simple terms. I imagine ideas like politeness are instead
| conveyed in other body language, facial expressions
| maybe, instead of dancing with words.
|
| But I'm just speculating, I'd love to hear someone's
| firsthand experiences here.
| SEJeff wrote:
| "hear" ASL
| elil17 wrote:
| Limited practical knowledge here (beginner ASL and some
| time in a linguistics research lab) - there are fewer
| synonyms, but facial expression and other movements make
| a huge difference. Much like German adds suffixes that
| can really change the meanings of words, a eyebrow or
| tongue movement can modify a sign in ASL.
|
| Another reason ASL has fewer synonyms is that it's not a
| horrible amalgamation of a ton of different languages
| like English is (English has a weirdly large vocabulary,
| like 3 times as large as some other languages). ASL is a
| direct descendant of French SL, no weird mixing. Moroccan
| SL, in contrast, is a descendent/hybrid of several
| languages and it, as an example, has like a million
| different handshapes for different kinds of insects.
|
| Further, a word-sentence model is too limited to describe
| sign languages (I know this applies ASL and Moroccan SL,
| not sure about others). For example, a large set of
| concepts are expressed through classifiers. Classifiers
| are systems of hand-shapes, spatial locations (e.g. side
| of head vs in front of chest), and motions which can
| specify a objects (including its shape, size, and
| location) and also the objects's verb and relationship
| with other objects. Some people mistakenly think
| classifiers are a form of pantomime, but classifier
| motions and hand shapes have specified and limited
| meanings (e.g. the flat rectangular object classifier is
| not making a rectangle shape, it's more of a pinching
| motion). That's just one example of how sign languages
| diverge from a word-sentence model, many more differences
| exist.
|
| The main take away is that sign languages work
| differently from spoken languages, it's not that easy to
| compare 1-to-1. There's definitely no word that means
| "rotund" in ASL, but there are certainly grammar
| structures that let you express that.
|
| Although you could, there's no need to soften or
| euphemize physical characteristics in American Deaf
| culture. You can just sign "that fat person over there"
| and it's not considered rude.
| rblatz wrote:
| ASL does have a large heritage from French Sign Language,
| but it also was influenced by Martha's Vineyard Sign
| Language.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha%27s_Vineyard_Sign_
| Lan...
| vgel wrote:
| Classifiers aren't unique to ASL or signed languages,
| though how they're expressed does differ somewhat due to
| the medium. For example in Japanese, counting objects
| requires classifiers, like 'hon' for cylindrical objects
| or 'nin' for people.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I would guess that has more to do with speaking in
| private rather than anything else. If one knows that the
| black guy or the fat guy or someone who loves them won't
| hear them, they'll refer to them however they would like.
| Same goes for anyone who speaks a minority language; I've
| had a few very good eastern European and Asian friends
| who told me later how I was being referred to by somebody
| who seemed entirely civil in English.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I don't think so.
|
| My deaf BSL instructor said that it was about being
| understood clearly, and just about deaf culture. If
| you're in a room of people signing everyone can see
| you're saying "who is the fat guy at the bar" so there's
| no point in being euphemistic. Might be a UK deaf culture
| thing.
| jaredtking wrote:
| I live in the US and have a deaf mother-in-law. This is
| true here too.
| seniorgarcia wrote:
| >>explain how "sign language" is not a language
|
| Can you explain it one more time?
|
| >>That said; it is amazing how many sign languages can come
| to similar conclusions due to "always trying to find the
| simplest way of explaining yourself".
|
| That does sound like most languages though. So maybe sign
| language is a language and everything local is just a
| dialect? I'm sorry if I come of insensitive but I don't get
| it.
| z77dj3kl wrote:
| > Can you explain it one more time?
|
| There is no one, universal sign language.
|
| For example, there is Australian Sign Language (Auslan),
| American Sign Language (ASL), etc. They're all different
| languages.
|
| I mean all spoken languages are just sounds, right?
| Sounds like one language to me, with multiple local
| dialects?
| seniorgarcia wrote:
| No, the type of sounds can be grouped into distinct
| language families and further down into language
| "branches". I just don't see (no pun intended) how this
| translates into different sign languages.
| thepete2 wrote:
| This is kind of unrelated, but I wonder if a small amount (say
| 100 signs or so) of sign language (ASL or local equivalent)
| wouldn't be useful for hearing people in their day-to-day
| lives. I'm very interested in sign-language, but language being
| what it is you can't do it alone ...
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> useful for hearing people in their day-to-day lives.
|
| You doubtless already use many signs. They may not be ASL but
| we do use a variety of hand gestures to convey very specific
| meanings.
| gugagore wrote:
| One way to distinguish between something like ASL and
| something like whatever system is used by e.g. scuba divers
| and airport staff is compositionality. (Developed) Natural
| language has many pieces that are "productive" to produce
| meaning from smaller meaningful units.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I'm not sure on the "very specific" part. We use some
| general, non-specific signs ("OK", "good" [thumbs up,
| depending on your cultural background and situation]).
|
| We, the hearing community in my country (UK), use gestures
| too of course.
|
| Could you give a few examples of signs hearing people use
| where you are that you consider "very specific"?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >>> where you are that you consider "very specific"?
|
| Flipping the bird. Pointing at things. Hand signals when
| driving (more a thing for motorcyclists). Then there are
| plenty of job-specific things. Crane operators have their
| own system of very specific hand gestures for directing
| crane operations. The military has a host of standardized
| gestures. DJs/audio techs/musicians have a set for
| talking in loud environments.
|
| https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/safety_haz/materials_hand
| lin...
|
| https://armynavyoutdoors.com/blog/learn-military-hand-
| signal...
|
| The little girl in this vid managed to convey a very
| specific meaning to a passing ship using only a gesture.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETrWMvicKps
| myself248 wrote:
| > The little girl in this vid managed to convey a very
| specific meaning to a passing ship using only a gesture.
|
| And it's SO specific that just reading that sentence, I
| knew exactly which meaning you meant, and which gesture.
| (Clicking the link to confirm was totally worth it
| though.) I've been on both ends of that gesture and it's
| always a hoot.
|
| > DJs/audio techs/musicians have a set for talking in
| loud environments.
|
| Whoah, really? I've improvised plenty, but I'm super
| curious if there's a standard set. You can always figure
| out "make louder", "make quieter", point at objects,
| mimic certain instruments. But it'd be nice to have more
| vocabulary beyond that.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| https://blog.sonicbids.com/8-jam-session-hand-signals-
| musici...
|
| http://www.preservationsound.com/2010/09/microphone-hand-
| sig...
|
| https://www.cybercollege.com/hand_sigs.htm
|
| And any orchestra can follow a conductor, baton or not.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Cool, thanks.
|
| I don't think "flipping the bird" is specific, it's
| either "I'm a jerk" or "I'm angry [with you]" but they
| both seem pretty wide ranging.
|
| Pointing is really none specific, do you want it, want to
| look at it, want someone else to hold it, etc..
|
| Military and crane operator signs seem like they're
| limited sign languages. Excellent example.
|
| Driving is a good one, but it's 3 specific signs, and
| then pointing. I'm often annoyed that other drivers don't
| know BSL!
|
| Thanks for illustrating the point, very helpful.
| bluGill wrote:
| Depends on context. A lot of workplaces have specific
| signs for use when hearing protection is worn: things
| like turn the machine off now, or I'm good to go. Airport
| ground control has a whole set of signs. Traffic cops
| also have their signs that everyone knows.
| swsieber wrote:
| You know what signing is amazing for? Teaching babies to
| communicate before they have proper vocal control (preverbal
| is the term I think). We're talking useful communication at
| under a year. Something like 9-12 months.
| variaga wrote:
| I use signs (not ASL) to communicate with my dog. When she
| was a puppy, she was having trouble learning verbal
| commands, so I started pairing them with unique gestures,
| which worked much better. Eventually, I mostly dropped the
| verbal part and now we just use gestures.
|
| Her vocabulary is small (she's a dog), but we have gestures
| for e.g. "sit", "lie down", "stand back up", "stay", "come
| here", "go there", "be quiet", "show me what the problem
| is".
|
| (She's a Siberian Husky)
| bluGill wrote:
| Somewhat. Babies do tend to learn a few signs, and it is
| useful when they can indicate what they need. However as
| soon as they learn to talk they universally forget
| everything. I know people fluent in sign (a large part of
| their job is working with the deaf), and when they sign to
| babies the babies are like "you idiot: I just heard you
| talking to someone else so don't insult my intelligence by
| not talking to me" The babies can't say something so
| complex, but you can tell from their reaction that is about
| what they are thinking.
|
| Which is too bad, sign language would be useful in later
| life. Unless there is a deaf person in the babies life
| though they will refuse to have anything to do with it once
| they can speak.
| IanCal wrote:
| > However as soon as they learn to talk they universally
| forget everything.
|
| A ridiculous assertion.
|
| My son knows quite a few signs and often uses them
| alongside speaking, which can really help when he's
| struggling to be as clear (e.g. when he's frustrated).
| smithza wrote:
| Babies do tend to learn a few signs...However as soon as
| they learn to talk they universally forget everything.
|
| This was our experience with our young child. It helped
| to be able to say "more" and sometimes "please" and
| eventually "all done" but eventually spoken words
| replaced this communication form. My wife and I have two
| semesters worth of education under Deaf teachers but have
| no plans of pressing further on this as a second language
| for our son.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > I know people fluent in sign (a large part of their job
| is working with the deaf), and when they sign to babies
| the babies are like "you idiot: I just heard you talking
| to someone else so don't insult my intelligence by not
| talking to me"
|
| The way my friends have done this is to speak and sign,
| not just sign. I don't think _any_ of them would 've
| thought it was appropriate to only sign to a hearing
| child. The purpose was to teach them both the verbal
| language and a way to communicate back while they were
| still too young to verbalize (or, in one critical case,
| unable to speak due to a birth defect but were perfectly
| capable of hearing).
| cauliflower2718 wrote:
| I was at a (seated) concert once, and the large family next
| to me would sign to each other to communicate without making
| noise. Signing has some nice advantages over whispering: you
| can sign to an entire group at once, but you can only whisper
| to one person at a time.
| bluGill wrote:
| It can be useful to have some signs, but don't confuse a few
| signs with a language. One like going to a foreign country
| and knowing how to ask where the bathroom is, and
| understanding because more their pointing than their words vs
| going to the country and getting into a discussion of
| something weird with a stranger that you just happen to meet.
|
| Sign language is a real language you can learn the language.
| Or you can learn a few signs: there is a place for both, but
| know which place you are in and don't pretend more.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Why do I always sense anger seething below the surface of
| any conversation about sign language?
| ecpottinger wrote:
| Because I have gone to see films in a number of languages
| I do not understand but they were sub-titled. I can't
| remember going to one that was not anime, and then not
| hearing someone complaining about having to read the
| dialogue.
|
| These films (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French and
| German) all clearly had posters at the theaters saying
| they were sub-titles and yet there was always someone
| demanding the movie be in English.
|
| Also I think a number of people have poor/slow reading
| skills that they can't bluff about when someone uses
| signing.
| medstrom wrote:
| I think this occurs more in some countries than others,
| with low sign language awareness. Maybe the US especially
| due to monolinguality. It seems people love to assume
| things about other languages that are false and can be
| insulting. Like when you say an English sentence to a
| Mexican who doesn't understand it, and you respond by
| saying the same thing again but louder and slower. It
| looks like you think they're dense.
|
| Another example, the notion that monkeys can "learn sign
| language". They can learn to use some signs, like a
| newborn can learn some words, but how would you feel as a
| French speaker if someone said "look, the monkey speaks
| French!" just because they taught the monkey some French
| words? It implies not that the monkey is smart, but that
| French is so simplistic that even monkeys can understand
| it.
| leesalminen wrote:
| > Like when you say an English sentence to a Mexican who
| doesn't understand it, and you respond by saying the same
| thing again but louder and slower. It looks like you
| think they're dense.
|
| My wife is learning Spanish right now because we are
| moving to Costa Rica. Her most used phrase is "de
| espacio, por favor" which means "slowly, please". She's
| able to understand much more of the language when folks
| slow down and annunciate clearly.
|
| When I lived in Chile as a teen, I also asked people to
| do the same thing frequently until I became proficient. I
| still ask sometimes in other Spanish-speaking countries
| because their accent or dialect differs from what my ears
| are most used to.
|
| Speaking slowly and clearly to anyone learning a language
| is incredibly useful and is not insulting in any way.
| swilliamsio wrote:
| Yea, but speaking slowly and clearly is _only_ useful to
| anyone learning the language.
|
| If I spoke to you in Klingon, and you don't understand
| Klingon. Would speaking to you in Klingon slower and
| louder help you? Undoubtedly, no, it would instead make
| me a rude person.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Depends. English is somewhat special in that it's the
| current _lingua franca_ , so almost everyone has _some_
| exposure to it - and at the same time, it 's a hodge-
| podge of words from different language families, so it's
| quite likely that an English speaker can pick out some
| words they understand from another language, if spoken
| slowly ("false friends" notwithstanding). So whether
| you're speaking English so someone who doesn't know it,
| or someone is speaking a language you don't know to you-
| the-English-speaker, there's stochastic benefit in
| slowing down.
|
| It's the same phenomenon as within language families. I
| don't know Ukrainian, but I can pick up words that share
| etymology with Polish words, assuming they speak slowly
| enough for me to isolate individual words. Similarly, I
| don't know much German, but I can route individual words
| through English.
| zeroego wrote:
| I had a similar experience while learning German.
| Berliners talk very quickly and I'd frequently request
| "Sprechen Sie langsam, bitte" aka speak slowly please.
| Unfortunately they'd usually switch to English after
| that, but when the speaker would stick it out with me I'd
| come away feeling like I'd gotten a little better with
| the language.
| diydsp wrote:
| I know exactly what you mean. My gf works at a school for
| the deaf and we're both hearing.... and I'm sensitive to
| this pensiveness you mention. Three reasons: there is so
| much bad info out there, asl and deaf culture are
| evolving as we observe, and hardly anyone is cataloging
| or curating the info. There are no ambassadors. It
| parallels health information imo. I guess I should add
| the contemporary attitude of self-righteousness on the
| u.s. when ppl learn sth abt any other group they tend to
| shove it others' faces. E.g. knowing that it was Illegal
| to drive a car with headphones on, I once dared to ask if
| deaf ppl were allowed to drive. Instead if a simple yes,
| I got chewed out by a hearing person for my ignorance.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > knowing that it was Illegal to drive a car with
| headphones on, I once dared to ask if deaf ppl were
| allowed to drive.
|
| Did you ever get an actual answer? I'd _guess_ yes, but
| it 's a fair question
| nsxwolf wrote:
| If I were to try to come up with a rationale, I guess it
| would be if you are able to hear, you have a duty to make
| your hearing available to increase safety. But, we won't
| automatically remove the right to drive from someone who
| can't hear as well or at all.
| Kluny wrote:
| It would be awfully useful if both sandwich-eaters and
| sandwich-makers could learn the signs for, for example,
| spinach, chipotle, mustard, mayo, wrap, ciabatta, red onion,
| and so on. At my favorite sandwich counter, a full year into
| the pandemic, people are still communicating with the staff
| by yelling at them from 3 feet away from a plexiglass
| barrier, while everyone is wearing masks and everyone else in
| the store is yelling as well.
|
| Seriously, they haven't even tried to come up with a better
| system. Like.... pictures on the glass that you can point to?
| A form with checkboxes that you can hand over? Nope, we're
| going stick with yelling our lungs out.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Absolutely, my wife and I did basic BSL as a night class. Not
| only is it fascinating to get to know more of deaf culture
| but it's also really useful.
|
| You can learn from YouTube, a sign dictionary (online ones
| have video) ... but yes, conversation is probably the best
| way.
|
| A night class or MOOC?
| ViViDboarder wrote:
| I'm heading but learned ASL at work. Ever since, I've tried
| to get my wife to learn because I'm always noticing times
| when it would be handy (pun not intended).
|
| Noisy places, when I'm brushing my teeth, when I want to be
| more discrete in public, communicating across a room without
| yelling.
| smithza wrote:
| when I want to be more discrete in public ..
|
| I think there is an unkindness here, though I do not think
| your intentions are unkind. I had very close Brazilian-
| internationals while a freshman in college who very
| deliberately chose not to speak their native tongue around
| Americans due to them thinking it unkind. My wife and I
| frequently do use some simple signs across the room, like
| "ready to go" (we are both hearing but have two semesters
| of ASL education).
| mcguire wrote:
| In general, using a language those around you don't speak
| can be rude, but I was imagining more along the lines of
| "Come rescue me from this conspiracy theorist."
|
| Which would have been handy at one point for me.
| triceratops wrote:
| > using a language those around you don't speak can be
| rude,
|
| Like generally in public? Or when you're in a social
| group with others?
|
| For the first scenario, I'd almost always speak a second
| language if I could, for privacy reasons. And also
| because it's less distracting to others IMO - people tune
| out unfamiliar languages as noise but not conversations
| they can understand. But yeah it's rude in the second
| scenario.
| dnndev wrote:
| Super powers
|
| Sign Language -> communicate with someone in a noisy room
| (across the room even)
|
| Braille -> A friend of mine learned braille so he could
| "read" books after his parents said lights out. What a rebel.
| medstrom wrote:
| A risky habit: signing with other deaf drivers on the
| motorway. I've done it...
| harrierpigeon wrote:
| I've seen people doing that on the highway, too! It
| appears to generally be one gesture, and occasionally the
| horn is used for greater emphasis.
| myself248 wrote:
| Yes, super powers!
|
| I went to a high school where the drama department did at
| least one play a year in ASL. Brought in instructors from
| the local deaf community, and all the drama kids learned
| it.
|
| This was also business genius, because it basically
| guaranteed ticket sales. A huge number of deaf people in
| the area would show up for every such play, year after
| year. Even parents with kids at the school generally stop
| coming to plays after their kids graduate, but this
| audience was loyal on the scale of decades.
|
| It also meant that a significant chunk of the student body
| was now able to communicate in/across a noisy room. During
| assemblies and stuff, you'd see a dozen conversations in
| progress, not making a sound.
|
| Or, communicate near-silently. Clothes rustle and certain
| signs involve patting, but neither of those sticks out the
| way voices do. Coordinating a prank behind the teacher's
| back....
| jfk13 wrote:
| Isn't that what flashlights are for?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Way easier to hide. If you were brave enough, you could
| literally read braille under the covers with your eyes
| closed while your parent had their head stuck through the
| door to check on you.
| gugagore wrote:
| To the extent that these are related, it's because of
| disability.
|
| Braille is just a writing system. Signed languages are
| generally not.
| triceratops wrote:
| Braille books are quite expensive though, aren't they? Did
| they already have braille books around the house for
| someone else?
| teddyh wrote:
| They might have checked them out from a public library.
| mabbo wrote:
| They are handy! Especially if one person is on a call and
| can't talk, or you're trying to be quiet.
|
| "I love you", "Food?", "Tea?" (we're tea drinkers) are
| commonly used in my home.
| wittjeff wrote:
| Check out Cued Speech (one-handed phonetic signing).
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn4e9V3oigs It's a different
| modality of the local spoken language, not a separate
| language like ASL. You can learn it in a weekend. IMO it
| should be taught to everyone in the 2nd grade to help with
| phonological awareness, which is helpful for visual literacy.
| But it'd also be useful in a lot of noisy situations
| throughout life.
| gugagore wrote:
| I feel like the alphabet + literacy does a decent job at
| creating phonological awareness already.
|
| The value proposition of CS is language accessibility to
| Deaf/HoH people while still using English.
|
| ASL, which comes with its own body of literature, puns,
| jokes, culture, etc., wasn't designed in the sense that
| Cued Speech was, but offers something much more valuable,
| in my opinion.
| smithza wrote:
| My wife and I learned under a Deaf school teacher (for a
| Deaf school) for a semester where she taught ASL and a
| little about Deaf culture. She was very sincere in her
| description that there is a lot of pride in Deaf culture.
| Now I have also heard the story of a hard-of-hearing woman
| who, having hearing parents, was greatly conflicted in
| going all in on ASL vs. learning Cued Speech. The Deaf
| community she was learning from spoke very intensely that
| she should not go that route and instead stick with ASL;
| partly I think because of this pride they feel in the
| culture and arts surrounding the language. There was shame
| and guilt in her story but she found a way to be connected
| to both the Deaf ASL community and the hearing community
| with Cued Speech.
| rblatz wrote:
| From my recollection cued speech and signed English both
| are controversial in the Deaf community. They are seen as
| clunky and forced on them by the hearing community.
|
| I think the biggest issue is that most languages including
| ASL have about the same informational density for a given
| unit of time. Whereas Cued Speech and Signed English have
| significantly lower informational density.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Sure, but if you're not deaf then the tradeoffs might be
| quite different
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Without knowing anything about deaf attitudes in general,
| I've learned to not mistake the loudest and angriest
| voices in a group as representative of all of it.
| SamBam wrote:
| Isn't the purpose of cued speech not to replace ASL/other
| sign languages, but to add some support for a person who
| does not know ASL to speak clearly to a deaf person?
|
| If you're a teacher or a police officer or someone who
| needs to talk to all people, including deaf people,
| wouldn't learning the eight cues be a useful tool, even
| if you're not going to fully-learn ASL?
| bluGill wrote:
| Maybe, but I don't see the point. Speaking with your
| hands is weird no matter what you are doing. Learning ASL
| signs instead of something else is that much harder, and
| ASL is a lot richer than either.
|
| Of course I can't claim any ability in ASL. When taking
| the baby sign language classes my teacher was very
| insistent that to the baby what sign you use doesn't
| matter, but we should use ASL signs because learning any
| other sign isn't any easier, and this way we have a few
| dozen signs that are actually useful after the baby grows
| up. Which is the point: if you learn some signs of ASL
| you can communicate better than pointing. When you learn
| something else your are just pointing and hoping you are
| understood.
| gnuvince wrote:
| I didn't know much of anything about ASL, but seeing David
| Cowan at some press conferences in Georgia made me a bit
| curious. There's a nice video of him on Youtube[1] where he
| explains that deaf people's native language is ASL, and not
| English. That was absolutely flabbergasting to me, because I
| had always imagine, like you said, that it was just "do this
| gesture to mean this word and this gesture for this other
| word".
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd5JGN1jno8
| bluGill wrote:
| It is more complex than that. ASL comes from french sign
| language, and so was always different from British sign
| language, and I suspect the grammar roots make sense in
| french. However since then things have diverged to the point
| that you can't really say there is anything in common with
| french sign language.
|
| Sign language only has a few (thousands) of signs. For the
| rest the signer finger spells the word they need, if they
| will use that word again they make up a new sign (often the
| first letter in a specific position). If a word is commonly
| used it will eventually enter the language in that city, and
| may or may not spread to other parts of the country/world.
| Obviously the finger spelling is the word in the spoken
| language not sign language.
|
| Warning, don't make up words in sign language until you are
| somewhat an expert. I know of a novice who needed to talk
| about a person named Ryan, so they gave Ryan a sign - not
| realizing that sign was already used for retard.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > I know of a novice who needed to talk about a person
| named Ryan, so they gave Ryan a sign - not realizing that
| sign was already used for retard.
|
| Plausible deniability here.
| medstrom wrote:
| That would be called Signed English.
| mabbo wrote:
| To add to what bluGill commented, there is "Signed English"
| which is word for word translation, there is ASL (or other
| signed languages), and there is a spectrum in between!
|
| And there can be disagreements in the Deaf community about,
| for lack of a better word, 'purity' of the language. Is it
| 'okay' to just sign English words with English grammar? Is
| there an ethical or moral imperative to maintain ASL as a
| _language_ and not just a translation of another language?
| And then you have one person telling another person that
| there 's something _wrong_ with how they communicate their
| native language! Language overlapping with culture
| overlapping with disability (or different-ability?)
| overlapping with people being people.
|
| There's no easy answers. But it's fascinating.
| gedy wrote:
| Thanks for your explanation, however it left me with additional
| question as to its value when politicians/government use a sign
| language interpreter in speeches. If it's so nuanced and
| regional, wouldn't reading English text translation be
| better/clearer?
| bluGill wrote:
| Don't assume all deaf people are good readers. Text is enough
| different from ASL that learning to read is like learning a
| foreign language. Some learn to read well, but some do not.
| If you want the later to understand you, then text is the
| wrong answer.
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