[sw-l] wallets etc

[Kimberley A. Shaw]

Hello all:
and that is why I sign myself "Kim from Boston"!
As somebody who is new to ASL (been signing 1 year 1/4 now), I have no way
of knowing whether I have learned the "standard" version of a new sign ...
or whether I have just learned to sign it the "Boston"/New England/East
Coast way.
And it's just fun seeing the other versions on the SignPuddle! "Standard"
ASL dictionaries just don't have much room for regionalisms ... but then
their page space is hogged up by all those line drawings. Hmpf.
-- Kim

sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu on Thursday, June 16, 2005 at 10:22 AM -0500
wrote:
>HI, Val,
>
>It is highly unlikely that there is any one version of a sign that will
>look right to everyone. WHY?? because of sign variations. Even as hearing
>people have local dialects, Deaf people have local sign variations. In
>mid-Missouri, for example, there are two signs for BROWN. I haven't
>searched your sign puddle in full yet, but if you have several versions
>of the same sign, it is possible that each version is right. (because
>each version is right for the area it came from).
>On the website       theinterpretersfriend.com             in the section
>that shows indigenous signs for different countries, there are three
>signs for Ethiopia.
>Hope this helps,
>                                    Jerry