LL-L 'Language varieties' 2007.01.28 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L - 28 January 2007 - Volume 03

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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L 'Language varieties' 2007.01.26 (10) [E]

> From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
> Subject: LL-L 'Language varieties' 2007.01.26 (06) [E]
>
> So, my question: how long have you to be trained to learn a modern,
> ‚adapted', grammatizised SL which enables to use a word like G:
> 'Atomreaktor', E: 'atom reactor', and up to which age men and women
> are able to learn it?

Like any language it depends partly on personal ability (not necessarily
intelligence!) and what sort of immersion you can sustain. I recently
worked with a very accomplished interpreter who only started to learn
BSL six years ago. She had come over from Ireland to do a degree in Deaf
Studies at Bristol University but she didn't know either Irish or
British Sign Language beforehand. She was here at my work for a day and
since my work is very technical and she never missed a beat, I assume
she could have signed "Atomreaktor" if someone had said it!

I know quite a few students who are doing Deaf Studies at Bristol, and
they tell me that nearly all their lectures are presented in BSL right
from the start, so that's pretty good immersion. I've also seen groups
of hearing students sitting signing away in BSL in the pub without any
Deaf people in the conversation. I asked such a group about this and
they said they never use English unless they have to.

> As far as I remember you became deaf at an age, let me say, of about
> 30 plus?! With the great advantage (??) that you had been able to hear
> before...

Or even 4 plus, which is when it was first noticed. But I didn't start
learning sign language until I was in my 30's and then there was a big
break while I built a new career and then I started from scratch again
at BSL about five or six years ago.

> Maybe it's of some interest: in my son's school there's offered the
> possibility to learn some basical Sign Language as an additional
> lesson (not examined), starting from the age of 13. Alternatively he
> could learn Dutch. I'd prefer SL at the moment, because Dutch could
> *spoil* my son's Low Saxon. His Dutch lessons have to come later,
> perhaps at times when his LS-skills are good enough to recognize bad
> dictionaries and some more of my own *favorite* enemies... ;-)! You've
> heard of families' traditons, *clan's feuds* ;-)...?

I think it's a shame that more linguists don't learn a sign language
because it gives you a bit of orthogonality to move out into a new
medium rather than just a new grammar and vocabulary and suchlike.

One big advantage in learning sign languages is that vocabulary is
_much_ easier to remember! I can't say the grammar's easy, though.

But looking at the big picture, learning a sign language is pretty much
the same sort of challenge as any other language, it takes time and
motivation, and if you want to perfect it, also making friends with the
natives.

Next time you watch that channel, try to catch the DSL sign for
"German". It looks like a hat with a spike on top  :)

> From: Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
> Subject: LL-L 'Language varieties' 2007.01.27 (03) [E]
>
> That Bushman boy, he could sign how he felt, say what he wanted, & was
> no less willingly sent on errends by his elders than his
> hearing-unchallanged fellows. I couldn't understand of course, but he
> approached my Bushman corporal with a very specific request from his
> mother, for a 500ml bottle of extra-stong chilli sauce, & a South
> African brand, not the Portuguese (it would, of course, be fresher), &
> to take it off his father's ration scale. He gestured using his right
> fingers, hand & arm & occasionally his face. Can you do that in
> "Plains Talk?"

Well, Mark, are you saying that he never had any contact with other deaf
children or signing teachers? How often do hunters talk about
extra-strong chilli sauce while they're out on the hunt? How often do
they talk about their feelings? :)

It doesn't sound to me like hunters' sign, but something much more
developed. And of course if people have the motivation they can develop
and maintain a full sign language whether they're deaf or not. I just
don't think the motivation here is hunting, even if that was the
original motivation.

Can you think of what the motivation might be?

----------

From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L 'Language varieties' 2007.01.27 (03) [E]

From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L 'Language varieties' 2007.01.26 (06) [E]

As I understand it, hunting language and American Indian "Plains Talk"
are quite a different thing from Deaf sign languages. These are signed
relatively slowly, are sometimes ingenious but much more basic than
everyday signed or spoken languages.

***
I picked up a book some years ago at Head-Smashed-In, in Canada. It's called
"indian sign language" by William Tomkins, a.k.a. Wambali Wi Yuta, "Sign
Talking Eagle" in Dakota.
He stresses the difference between Plains Sign and various sign languages
used by deaf people.

Firstly, the purpose of Plains Sign is specifically cross-cultural or
cross-linguistic; you use it in the same way that a Turk and a Chilean might
use English, as a common language.  This is quite the opposite of deaf
signing, which is normally used as a first language.  It's interesting that
a "Plains Esperanto" or "Plains Pidgin" never emerged, but that leads
indirectly to the second point;

Plains Sign, in contrast with most deaf languages, is delivered with the
minimum of facial expression.  The "Stone Face" is paramount to good form in
signing.  The neighbouring peoples, with their different languages and
cultures, were routinely hostile and any communication could readily blow up
into conflict if offense was given, or even suspected.  It is very hard to
keep emotional nuances out of spoken language, whereas Sign, delivered with
an impassive face, is much less personal.  There was thus an inbuilt safety
mechanism.

Paul
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