It's only natural. You want to be nice. Wouldn't do to hurt peoples' feelings unawares. You'll see signs change as people attempt to accommodate.
The old way to say the word "China" referred to the eye and is now considered rude.
But lately the deaf in Hawaii have rejected this for some reason in favor of how the word is written in Kanji. Middle kingdom. Has an almost Obama signature appearance to it.
The word for "Japanese" was the same thing with a "J," a convention that held for a very long time.
But then people decided collectively that it is better to use the sign that Chinese people use themselves, and their word for themselves refers to the buttons of a traditional Chinese silk blouse.
But lately the deaf in Hawaii have rejected this for some reason in favor of how the word is written in Kanji. Middle kingdom. Has an almost Obama signature appearance to it.
They traded a one-handed sign for a two-handed sign. Lazy signers object. It won't catch on.
Dr. Bill Vicars at lifeprint says some die hards are sticking with the original eye twist version.
...one of the participants (a Deaf, highly experienced ASL instructor) brought up the CHINA sign. This person was adamant about not accepting the "borrowed" version of the CHINA sign based on the "buttons/clothing" of the military uniform. This person exclusively uses the old "index finger twist at the side of the eye" version of the sign for CHINA.
How Archie Bunker.
So now "Japan" is the shape of the islands. Two handed. And it hardly looks like Japan at all, more like a sweet potato. But there you go. And you can hardly tell the difference between that and "Italy" which also changed from a Christian cross made with an "i" to a similar thing with one hand so now Italy looks like a one-handed Japan sweet potato and not like a boot at all.
5 comments:
The sign for fire drill could be used for Chinese.
Or laundry.
Ya know, if a Chinese signer shaped his fingers into a round shape and held them near his eyes to indicate an Occidental personage, I would be so humiliated that he would make fun of our collective deformity.
Mrs. Haz and I attended this play last night. It is about a 20-something guy deaf from birth who is raised to lip read and speak rather than use ASL.
He meets a 20 something woman who was raised by deaf parents to use ASL, and who is now going deaf herself. Mucho emotional anxiety all around. Arguments about how deaf people should use ASL or learn to lip read. You probably get the scenarios.
On the way back to our car, I wondered if deaf people get Tourette's syndrome, and if they do how do they express it if all they speak is ASL?
Surrender is the fate of the niceness class.
Haz, I have a deaf friend who is a master lip reader. People who have known him for years usually have no idea that he's deaf. Another friend's wife who's also deaf is more of a 50/50 type. She can read lips pretty well, but not as well as my friend. When the two interact, they both sign and talk.
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