Flying Bird

[Sandy Fleming]

Val wrote:

> Hello Sandy! hmmm...let's see...In this flying bird...it looks like to
> me that the thumb and baby finger are moving in and out, or up and
> down? strange flapping of wings?

Hmmmm! There isn't supposed to be any baby finger, just thumb - strange
flapping of one wing!

The thumb is meant to be just moving up and down, from horizontal to
vertical without the rest of the hand moving.

I was trying to think of why it didn't show two wings - then I decided it
wasn't possible - now you say baby finger and I realise this could be done!
But the "I-love-you" hand is never used in BSL (well, I've seen it used for
"space shuttle" but this was by Jerry Hanafin, a well-known story teller on
TV, so perhaps he deliberately borrowed it from ASL for his story) so  this
might be why we only use one wing.

The more I think about it, the more I think this must be a sort of
"word-play" or "sign-play" rather than everyday signing. But humorists and
poets (and children?) use sign-play, so - it needs to be written!

> message...But the baby finger is going in and out too, right? not only
> the thumb? The first handshape is the baby and index fingers out? and
> then the baby finger goes down nd the thumb comes up?...Val ;-)

It's only meant to be the thumb  :)

I've attached a couple of attempts - the first just repeats the knuckle
movement symbol, the second smushes them together because it's a regular
rhythm. I think the first is the best?

Sandy Fleming

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: flying_bird_2.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 3891 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/sw-l/attachments/20040620/67d3f17e/attachment.gif>