nondominant handshapes

[Nassira Nicola]

Quoting Victor:

>The one Dan mentioned with the non-dom C hs. (BTW, I've always seen that
>version of
>EMAIL with full-C.)

Me, too, actually - and just to confirm, I tried it on a few Deaf friends
out here who looked at me like I had lost my mind, then very patiently
illustrated the full-C version.  So wherever the baby-C is from, I'm
guessing it's not a Boston thing.

>What makes this from non-native?

I think - someone please correct me - that it's because the non-dominant
handshape (baby-C) is not on the Battison list of base handshapes.  (As has
been brought up earlier, though, certain perfectly normal ASL signs also
violate this rule, possibly because they're "classifiers gone native.")

>Is the fingerspelled lexeme for "email" MORE acceptable than the signed
>lexeme?

To clarify - are you talking here about E-M-A-I-L or the compound E~MAIL?


>What would a native, non-initialized signed version of "email" look like?

I make no claims as to its preferability, but I've also seen the sign that
I'd more commonly associate with a gloss like SEND-A-TEXT-MESSAGE-TO used in
cases where context (and sometimes even mouthing) definitely specified
e-mail.  It's got an X on the dominant hand and a 1 on the non-dominant...
it always reminds me of information zipping down a phone line, but that
could just be a flight of fancy on my part.


Now I'm curious as to other people's observations about signs for e-mail...


Nassira Nicola


Harvard University
Department of Linguistics
Class of 2005
nicola at fas.harvard.edu




>----- Original Message -----
> > How many of these signs were coined by native signers?
> > {snip}
> > EMAIL (non-dominant handshape is baby-C) are examples of
> > these. I'm not saying these signs "aren't ASL" (although there are
> > normative arguments for excluding them) but this wouldn't the first
> > instance of borrowed words following different phonological rules.
> >
> > -Dan.

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