WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: How Sign Language Works 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:04.600 Hi everybody. It's Saturday and I'm Chuck and that means 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:07.320 it's time for another Stuff you Should Know select. This 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:09.799 week I picked out How Sign Language Works. This is 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:13.039 a great one. It's from two thousand fourteen, February six 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:17.079 and I just remember at the time being fascinated with 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:18.639 sign language. I think that's why it was on the 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:21.560 list to begin with, and we learned quite a bit ourselves. 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:24.720 I know you will too, very fascinating. There's not just 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:27.760 one sign language everybody. There are many, many kinds, and 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:30.440 that's just one little prefect to give you before you 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:32.440 listen right now. So I hope you enjoy it How 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:38.520 Sign Language Works. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:47.360 House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:50.159 I'm Josh Clark with me as always as Charles W 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:53.279 Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry and the three of us 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:58.520 together our Stuff you Should Know. Hey, buddy, he's going here. 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:02.760 Uh uh, it's going pretty good. I have to say 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:06.080 this was one of the better articles I've read in 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:09.840 recent memory. Wow. But Mr Jonathan Strickland, our nemesis at 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:12.600 tex Stuff, Yeah, he wrote a great article in Sign 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:16.040 Language arch nemesis who knew Yeah, I had no idea 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:18.839 that he knew anything. Yeah, it's like there's, uh, there's 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:20.959 nothing about the future of sign language, and here it's 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:22.720 just sign language. Yeah. And this is one of those 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:24.520 where I knew really not much about it and it 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.280 was just a delight to learn, you know. Yeah, and uh, 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:31.319 he basically just did American sign language. Yeah. I have 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.520 the impression that if he'd tried to expand it, it 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:37.080 would have really gotten unwieldy quick. So it's a good 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.399 editorial decision, good writing. Well, that's one of the things 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:43.039 I didn't know. I didn't even know that that there 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:46.600 are hundreds of sign languages. I kind of thought it 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:49.680 was all the same. But he makes a point even 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:53.920 that you may be better able to communicate with someone 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:56.640 speaking French sign language because that was the basis of 0:01:56.680 --> 0:02:00.320 American sign language than to speak sign language if you're 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:03.920 American with someone speaking British sign language. Yeah, because it's 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:08.040 just different. Sharing a common spoken language with another country 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:10.640 does not mean there's nothing to do with it. There 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:14.120 that they share common sign language. No um. And that's 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:17.080 a really good point because it reveals that the death 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:21.200 community has over time just basically said we're gonna do 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:24.080 this ourselves. Yeah. And it even gets to the point 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:28.680 where regional dialects just like a regular spoken language. It 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:31.760 basically just is a regular language. The more I read it, 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:33.680 the morrow is like, this is just like speaking English 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:38.080 or speaking Southern English or Midwestern English. You know. Yeah, 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:40.840 And you know, depending on your community, the community you're 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:43.560 raised in, the type of house you're raised in, UM, 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.920 that's what will necessitate what kind of sign language you 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.880 learn or develop or whatever. Pretty cool, Yeah, it is, UM. 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:56.120 And Well let's talk about the history of this a 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:59.760 little bit first, So Chuck, you know, humans have a 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.840 long and storied history of mistreating groups that are different 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:08.040 from everybody else. It's what makes America great, not just America. 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:12.920 It goes back even for the humanity, the the deaf community, UM, 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:17.880 up until shamefully recently. UM, we're kind of one of 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:21.480 those groups that were just kind of mistreated. UM. The Torah, 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:26.160 for example, forbids deaf people from fully participating in some 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:29.639 of the rituals in the temple. UM. The ancient Greeks 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:35.520 wouldn't allow deaf people to be educated. Uh. St Augustine. St. Augustine, 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:40.440 he's a saint. For goodness sake, he taught that deaf 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:45.160 people were evidence that God was angry at their parents. Wow. Yeah, 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:49.360 it wasn't until about the Renaissance that anybody finally took 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:52.600 a stab at educating deaf people. And they found pretty 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:57.600 quickly that oh, they just can't hear. That's the thing, right, 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:01.160 they can learn very quickly and uh, just like you 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:05.920 and me. So that kind of became the springboard once 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:08.640 people figured out that you can't educate deaf people to 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:14.120 them being included more into a normal society. Um, but 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:17.640 for a long time they were mistreated. Uh and as 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:21.640 a result, I think they kind of, um, well I'm 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:24.920 speculating here, but I think they kind of said, we're 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:27.680 going to handle this ourselves. Like I said, like, we're 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:30.000 going to develop our own language, take matters into our 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:35.280 own hands. Literally. Yeah, And um, that's where sign languages 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.400 started to come from. Just necessities the mother of inventions, 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.039 or you need to be able to communicate with people 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:46.520 around you. And so sign language developed in communities where 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:50.039 there were deaf people who were accepted and not just 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:52.120 kind of put to the side. Yeah, before it was 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:55.320 even uh, they were getting official with it. People were 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:58.040 using sign language right because they were like, well, I 0:04:58.040 --> 0:04:59.799 don't care if you're gonna make it some official language 0:04:59.880 --> 0:05:01.840 or not. We need to talk to each other exactly. 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:03.600 We're gonna figure it out. And not only do they 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:05.280 need to talk to each other, they need to talk 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:07.839 to the community at large as well. And there's actually 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:11.320 this really cool story on Martha's Vineyard. There was up 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:14.360 to a quarter of the population when they moved over 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:18.719 here from England. Um they were an isolated population, so 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:22.520 um there they suffered what was called a founder's effect, 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:27.719 where the populations just kind of bottlenecked and these families intermarried, 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:32.240 but they didn't marry outside of their group, so deafness 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:36.919 was hereditary. Deafness was a trait that was passed along 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:39.040 the group. So up to a quarter one or four 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:42.560 people in this community were death right. As a result 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:45.400 of this community on Martha's Vineyard in the early eighteenth 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:48.720 century having up to a quarter of its population death 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:52.599 a specific type of sign language called Martha's Vineyard Sign 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:55.520 Language developed, and not only were the deaf in the 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.960 community proficient in everybody in the community was proficient in it, 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.000 and up in till nineteen fifty two, when the last 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:08.560 deaf Martha's Vineyard resident, Martha's Vineyard board resident died. That's 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:10.640 when it became extinct. So they were practicing it from 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:14.760 about seventeen hundred to nineteen fifty two. And apparently um 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:17.839 Oliver Sacks went and interviewed some of these people for 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:20.240 part of a book. Man, he's always on it, he is, 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:25.000 um and uh he's He reported that some of these elders, 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:30.200 these Martha's Vineyard elders, um reverted to sign language while 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:32.160 they were talking. And so they were coming in and 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:34.640 out of speech and sign language and apparently weren't even 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:36.760 aware that they were doing it. That's awesome, and they 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:38.640 were not deaf. That might be the fact of the 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:42.080 show Martha's Vineyard Sign Language. Yeah, it could be one 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.560 of them. I think there's a bunch in here, agreed. 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:48.200 Uh So, if we're talking about history, we have to 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:50.960 go back to the early eighteen hundreds, Uh, to a 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:55.520 dude named Thomas Hopkins Galladad and Um he was a 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:58.320 minister to the deaf, and he went to Europe because, 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:00.359 like we said, in France is where it's sort of 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:04.240 originated officially, and he wanted to learn some techniques on 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:06.760 how to teach this stuff. I met a guy name 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:14.480 Roche ambrose Q Curon Cicard who was in Abbe. He 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:17.680 it's a title, he's like a clergyman. Um. He was 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:19.480 a director of the School of the Deaf in Paris, 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:22.360 and he learned some stuff from him, and then plucked 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:26.080 one of his students, Laurence Clerk, and said, Hey, there's 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:28.600 big money in this, let's go start a school in 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:32.680 the United States. That probably wasn't his motivation, although you 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:34.400 never know, nothing wrong with making a little money by 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:38.200 starting a school. Uh. So they established the American School 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:42.280 for the Deaf in eighteen seventeen in uh Hotford, Connecticut, 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:46.160 and Um went on like they incorporated what they learned 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:47.960 in France with what was already going on in the 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:50.840 United States, right, which is why, like you said, Um, 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.400 if you were an American sign language speaker and you 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:55.720 go to France and you're speaking with a French sign 0:07:55.800 --> 0:08:00.000 language speaker, you'll probably be successful because American sign language 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.160 is partially rooted in French side language. Yeah, more so 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.640 than like going to England. This sounds so weird to 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:09.520 think about, yeah, Um, And they ended up founding as well. 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:15.040 Gallaudet University in d C. Go Bison's, is that right. Yeah, 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:17.239 they get a football team. I played for the Beverly 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:22.119 Bisons in elementary school. Really I'm a Bison. It's pretty 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:25.160 cool though, they got a football team all deaf and 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.160 or hard of hearing. And it's cool to watch the video, like, 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.200 you know, the coaches given like the motivational speech and 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:33.640 he's signing at the same time and it's I don't thing, 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:35.640 it's kind of neat. That is cool. And I thought 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.880 about this too. Probably not affected by home field advantage 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.800 or not. Oh the noise, yeah, I wonder though, like 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:47.480 the tremble nous of it, of that much just sound yea, 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:52.760 the sound waves, the physical waves hitting you well. But yeah, true, 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:55.199 but it's not the same as you know. NFL teams 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:57.400 when they go to visit like Seattle, they have they 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:01.400 work out all these sign language uh for each other. Oh, 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:02.679 I see what you know what I'm saying. I thought 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:05.079 you mean getting psyched out by like the crowd noise. No, 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:06.559 I mean like not being able to hear when you 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:08.360 are changing a play at the line of scrimmage that 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:12.520 these signs and these guys are like, dude, they're just um. 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:17.000 So anyway, go bisons. Uh, and that is a school 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:21.600 more than students today, although they're not all deaf. About 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:25.160 five UM may consist of hearing students, which I thought 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:27.199 was interesting because I guess it just you know, it's 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.480 a good school. Yeah, you know. And it says here 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:34.040 in the article that there was a controversy among the 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:36.880 students and some of the faculty, and I looked it 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:40.440 up and apparently there was a an incoming president in 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:44.480 like the mid two thousand's who was born death, but 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:49.600 it had been raised to UM to speak rather than sign, 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:53.040 and apparently most of the students were not very happy 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:55.679 about that because they didn't think she was planning on 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:59.120 emphasizing sign language, and they wanted to make sure that 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:03.760 sign language was like the the UM the main method 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:08.720 of communication. Yea interesting. UM So, like we said, we're 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.920 gonna be talking about ASL mainly, which has its own 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:16.880 grammar and syntax and phonology, which if you're talking about speaking, 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.320 it's a study of sounds, which I'm about signing. It 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:24.560 is the hand movements and signals and motions. Phonology. Yeah, yeah, 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:29.319 it's the It's how in the sixties some researcher discovered 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:33.280 that sign language isn't made up of a distinct sign 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:38.079 for everything, right, there's a discrete set of hand gestures, 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:42.840 movements that you can change and alter to make different 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:47.000 words or concepts, and that that would be phonology. Right. Yeah, 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:48.960 it's kind of like I don't think we pointed out 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:53.520 sign language. American sign language is not literally trying to 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:56.800 translate each word someone speaks. It's about the concept and 0:10:56.800 --> 0:10:59.120 getting the point across of what someone is saying. And 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:00.679 we'll get into that it will make more sense in 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.400 a minute. So, but that's phonology. And phonology as far 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:08.000 as speech goes, would be syllables. Yeah, that sounds this 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:12.200 is like hand like in a gesture or whatever. Okay, uh. 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.720 And morphology, which if you're speaking, that is how words 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:19.200 are formed from basic sounds, and in sign language that's 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:24.520 the way you're uh. Hand and motions represent the concepts. Okay, 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:26.760 So that makes sense. Yeah, And you were saying that 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:32.240 American sign language is not follow English necessarily. If it 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:36.120 doesn't follow English, in fact, they try to avoid sounding 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:40.600 like English. Yeah, like they abandoned English syntax. They there's 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:45.080 no use of the word am or be um. It's 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.120 pretty simple and straightforward, and some of the stuff also 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:53.319 are Some of the signs are conceptual, like there there 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.400 are some that are UM symbolic, but some are like 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.320 a concept or an icon. I guess it's a better 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:03.280 way to put it, like um, if you are doing dear, 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:06.040 if you're saying the word deer, signing the word dear, 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:09.680 um d e er, the animal you put your you 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:11.839 stick your fingers up and put them close to your 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:14.920 head like handlers. Right. Yeah, So I was curious, like 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:19.600 how you would sign the word moose. Yeah, and I looked, 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:22.199 what is it? It's the same thing, but rather than 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:24.800 having them up against your head, they're out off to 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:27.360 the side a little bit because moose has like antlers 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:29.840 that are bigger than a deer. Well, and that illustrates 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:32.920 a very important point with a s l um. It's 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:36.000 not just the things the signs you make with your hands, 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:40.600 it's body language expressions, uh in the space. How you 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.240 use the space around you, like to take the antlers 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.120 away from your head represent something and as we'll learn later, 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:49.960 where you hold your hands represent different things, like further 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:53.160 away from your body or closer to your body. UM 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:56.040 and we'll get to all that, but um, basic nuts 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:59.200 and bolts they are. You can call them speakers even 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:03.079 though they're signing. Uh, but generally you call the person 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:06.600 receiving the sign at the time, the receiver, the person 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:10.080 being spoken to, yeah, and the receiver. If you're a receiver, 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:13.280 you don't just stare at the hands. In fact, you 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:15.600 don't focus on the hands at all. You focus on 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:19.520 their face and sort of keep the hands in the periphery. 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:23.120 That's how UM the remember the did you hear about 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:26.199 the guy who was signing at Mandela's memorials? Thought that 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:28.960 was going to be your intro. Actually I went with 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:31.840 the mistreating people intros to you know, I like that. 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:38.959 UM the Yeah, this guy was a fraudulent UM sign translator. 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.440 Now was he really? Did they get? Because I thought 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:44.679 he was like, no, I'm not fraudulent, I'm just okay 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:48.760 he uh I. What's unclear is so he was he's 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:52.600 he suffers from schizophrenia and UM he was hired on 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.640 officially to do this UM and they think that the 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:58.000 way he was hired was because his rate was about 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:02.800 half of what normal sign translator would have been. So 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:05.520 they basically just went with the cheaper option and didn't 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.240 do their due diligence and figure him out because he'd 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:12.680 actually done this before where he doesn't know sign language 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:16.280 and apparently has no malicious intent or anything like that. 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:17.880 I don't know if he just needed money, or if 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:19.840 he thinks he know sign language, or if he wants 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:21.400 to know sign language, or he feels like you can 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:25.720 get it across. But during Mandela's funeral um he was 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:28.479 doing all the sign language and it was total nonsense. 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:30.320 So none of it was real at all. No, it 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:33.880 was utter gibberish. And one of the one of the 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:37.760 ways that the deaf community, who were understandably upset at 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:40.520 all this. I bet some of them got a good laugh, sure, 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:46.120 but overall they said, if you're doing sign you don't 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:48.760 just sit there with like a stone face, which this 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:51.200 guy was doing. He was all hand gesters, and the 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:55.359 hand gesters didn't mean anything. But then also, you expressed 0:14:55.560 --> 0:15:00.600 most of sign language with expressions, with facial expressions, movement. 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.280 You don't just stand there because it doesn't do anything. 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:06.320 You're not getting your point across. So this guy, one 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:10.720 of the ways he was found out, Uh, he was 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:13.400 like stone faced. And if you go and look at it. 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.119 He's not moving his face at all, like is completely 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:19.560 yeah solemn. He was found out pretty quick too, Yeah, 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:21.640 because I'm sure there are people watching it. You're like, 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:27.680 what this what's going on? This guy's talking gibberish? So weird. Uh. 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:31.280 If you were signing actions a lot of times but 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:35.400 not always, you just mimic the action like um. Strickling 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:39.680 points out, if you want to sign eat, you hold 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:41.320 your finger and thumb like you're holding like a little 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:43.040 piece of chocolate and you go to put it in 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:47.840 your mouth. That means eat. Pretty straightforward. And there there's 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:50.440 also something I think it's kind of neat and efficient 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:55.640 about um sign language? Is that the same that same 0:15:55.720 --> 0:16:01.000 sign for eat um is all doubles for other signs 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:03.480 to depending on what you do with it. Yeah, can 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:07.720 get confusing, it can, but it's also it's it's I 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:09.960 don't know, I like it makes it makes the whole 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:12.840 thing more elegant to me that you one sign, when 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:16.280 delivered in a certain way, changes the meaning and you 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:19.520 can't you really have to pay attention. Yeah. For instance, Uh, 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:21.560 if you want to sign food, it is the same. 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:23.600 A lot of times you will double a sign to 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:28.000 indicate something else to indicate it now, Well, it depends. 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.120 That's why it can confusing. So the sign for food 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:33.440 is the same as doubling the sign for eat. But 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:36.560 if you want to sign eating uh, which is a verb, 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:40.720 you would uh also repeat the eat signs. So that's 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:44.000 where if you're receiving sign language, you understand it. It's 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:46.560 all about your context. You like, what are you talking about? Yeah, 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:47.920 what do you mean? You guys went out and you 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:53.360 were food? Yeah, exactly. I should teach you somethings would 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:55.400 be fun. Um, but I need to learn it first. 0:16:55.440 --> 0:17:02.080 But apparently also, the the the verbs or action words 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:07.679 or signs are are bigger, whereas nouns are smaller. Right, Like, 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:10.879 the gestures are bigger or smaller, depending on whether it's 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:13.280 a noun or verb. Two. That's true. That's so. That's 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:15.760 another way. So again, you can't just sit there with 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.560 your hands directly in front of you, moving within a 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:22.359 very small box. Yeah, yeah, it's your You wouldn't be speaking, 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:24.440 at least as far as American sign language goes. You 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:27.199 wouldn't be speaking correctly. That's true. U. There is an 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:32.119 alphabet too. Is every thirteen year old girl knows all right, 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:35.359 why don't you remember that? Like it seems like in 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:37.320 like the seventh grade, every girl I knew went through 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:40.720 a phase where they learned that the sign alphabet and 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:42.639 would like spell out things with their friends that no 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:44.240 one else knew what they were talking about. What you 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:47.240 never saw that? No? Oh, man, I remember the big, 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:55.160 bubbly cursive writing. Yeah, yeah, I just seem to remember 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:57.639 a lot of young girls learning that sign language alphabet 0:17:57.640 --> 0:17:59.440 and they would sit around and spell things about people 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:02.639 and had not run into that, not Untilita. Maybe it 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:05.640 was a Georgia thing. Maybe. Anyway, there's an alphabet which 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:09.400 actually where you you know, it's called fingerspelling, but it's 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:14.520 only used to um illustrate a really specific concept or 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:17.800 to indicate, like a person spell a name. Yeah, Like, 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:20.320 if you're gonna be telling a story about Josh, I 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:22.679 gotta do a spell out Josh at the beginning, and 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:24.280 then you don't have to keep doing it over and 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:27.880 over right. Um. One way to do that too, especially 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:31.719 if I'm not present, is to indicate an empty space 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:35.800 by you spell out my name, point to that empty space, 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:38.000 and then from that point on, anytime you point out 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:40.760 the empty space you're seeing Josh. Yeah, if you're there, 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:43.480 it's called indexing. Use your finger. You just point to Josh. 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:45.840 But yeah, if you're not there, you just make an 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:49.399 imaginary Josh and you keep pointing to that space to 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:53.159 refer to Josh. It's pretty cool. Um. Another reason that 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:57.480 you would use finger spelling would be to ask somebody 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:00.199 what a sign was for something you couldn't remember. So 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:04.240 if you're saying something you you and you couldn't think 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:07.359 of moose, you might spell out and fingerspelling what's the 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:10.120 sign for moose? Yeah, And then they would say, hey, 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:12.439 fingers up away from the head. Yeah, I wrote an 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.160 art wrote. I read an article from the Washington Post 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:19.880 earlier about UM Washington, d C. They call him terps interpreters. 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:24.240 Are you sure they weren't talking about University of Maryland? 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:27.679 They were talking about you know, but uh, it's a 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:30.040 big deal in d C. There's like, on any given day, 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:34.560 there's like fifteen people in d C signing for clients. Yeah, 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:37.640 of course it makes sense because it's law. First of all, 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:42.520 federal law requires reasonable accommodation for a deaf person. But um, 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:45.720 this one guy that they interviewed, uh, what's his name? 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.920 Painter he said that spelling is you're you're like your 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:52.440 back door, like if every and it's it's tough in 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:57.399 DC because he was like, basically, try signing a speech 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:01.840 by Bernanky when they're saying like very d C specific 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:05.159 political jargon that may, you know, maybe not have a 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:09.159 concept you can represent, like fiscal cliff, or it's not 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:12.440 your first rodeo, or kick it down the road a 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:16.919 little bit. And so they basically have invented political jargon 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:19.159 for people to do that. And he said, or if 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:21.159 you get stuck, you can always just spell it. And 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:23.479 that appears to be a hallmark of sign language. Is 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:28.000 um there like new signs are created all the time, 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:30.800 just like new words are created all the time. And 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:36.240 just like with speech, UM there are prescriptivists and there's descriptivists, 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.880 like people who say, no, American sign language is sacrosanct. 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:42.119 It is what it is. It's not to be added to. 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:44.960 If you add to it, it dilutes the language. Go 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:46.720 come up with your own language if you want to 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:49.400 add fiscal cliff to it. Um. And then there's other 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.119 people who are descriptivists who say no, a language is 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:55.560 a living, breathing, evolving thing. And like we need to 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:59.240 get the concept of fiscal cliff along across so here 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:02.000 it is it looks like moose kind of I would 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:04.840 just do a little guy walking then falling off a cliff, sure, 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:10.240 you know, and then making a dollar sign. Uh. If 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:12.520 you have seen people do sign language and you see 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:16.040 them looking upset or puffing their cheeks out or raising 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:20.080 their eyebrows, uh, they're indicating an inflection. That what's called 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:25.320 a non manual marker. So, um like, if you wanted 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:29.119 to ask someone, and that's also with punctuation, if you 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:31.080 wanted to, you could do the little question mark sign, 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:34.159 but more likely you would just say the sentence and 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:37.200 then raise your eyebrows. Right, go give him an example, 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:42.240 Um like movies? Do you like the movies? Right? You 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:46.040 would say you like movies and then raise your eyebrows 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:50.480 like huh. You basically like a rush and you like movies. 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:55.840 That's basically what's going on there. Any Yaka Sarf reference 0:21:55.880 --> 0:22:00.119 is hilarious. It doesn't matter what it is. Jer's the 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:02.320 King of the Hill that he co starred on No Way. 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:05.120 They go to Branson and like he uh, I think 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:07.920 Bobby like ends up hanging out with him. Yeah, it's 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:12.000 pretty awesome. UM. Another way you can modify a sign, 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:14.480 there's basically a couple of ways you can modify action 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:19.919 UM is by directionalizing. So if you, you know, I 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:22.360 had a nice leisurely meal, you would do the symbols 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:25.280 for the signs for eating very slowly. If you want 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:26.840 to tell someone I had to wolf it down real 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:28.760 quick because it was late for a meeting, you would 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:33.480 just do the signs for eating very fast. It's pretty easy, yes. 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:36.679 Or if you wanted to say I'm going to give 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:39.240 a gift to you, you would just do the signs 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:44.800 for uh, give gift, and then you know, indicate that 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:47.080 I'm giving it to you or to someone else. The 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:50.080