Proudly two-handed in Oz!

[Doug McLean]

In message <19990210004614.5905.qmail at hotmail.com>, Adam Schembri
<acschembri at hotmail.com> writes
>>As Adam said there seems to be an Americanization process going on in
>the
>>Australian Deaf Community  in the way of the spread of the use of the
>one
>>handed fingerspelling alphabet. In New Zealand the opposite is
>occurring the
>>Deaf there reject any attempts to bring American signs into their
>language.
>
>I'm afraid you have misunderstood me. In my reply to your message about
>acronyms, I did not claim that any "Americanisation" (notice the
>spelling difference!) process is occuring in the Australian deaf
>community. It is true that ASL has been the source of a number of loan
>signs in Auslan (especially in non-core areas of the vocabulary), but
>the fingerspelling used here remains overwhelmingly two-handed, as in
>the U.K.
>
There appears to be a tendency here, particularly in the younger
set, sometimes to use ASL one-handed fingerspelling which can be slipped
into in pubs etc., where the other hand may be holding a glass. But it
is more common to fingerspell BSL one-handed using an imaginary left (or
right) hand in these circumstances. It is regarded as 'cool' by the
trendy young Deaf to fingerspell in ASL occasionally.  The ASL 'I love
you' is common is BSL these days.

Doug
--
Doug McLean.
The Forest Bookshop (Specialist in books and other media on Deafness and Deaf
Issues).  8 St John Street, Coleford, Gloucestershire, England, GL16 8AR.
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