Sign Language 101: Types of Sign Language
Uploaded by SignLanguage101 on 14.06.2012
Transcript:
Welcome back to Sign Language 101.
Today we are going to talk about different types of sign language.
Because the misconception is that there is only one kind of sign language.
When there are A LOT. Especially just in the United States.
So the three main types of sign language that you are going to see in the U.S. are A.S.L.
Which is American Sign Language
P.S.E. which is Pidgin Signed English
and then S.E.E. which is Signed Exact English
Now American Sign Language is the conversational language of deaf people.
It is just how they communicate.
It's their own way, it's their own language.
It has it's own grammar. It's not something you can just like pick up over night.
You have to spend time using the language to learn the language.
Just like you have to do in any other language like Spanish or French or anything.
Now like I said in the introduction, I'm not here to teach you ASL.
I'm here to teach you just vocabulary and get you started so that you can meet a deaf person, communicate with them and eventually become fluent in ASL
Because I'm not even fluent in ASL yet.
I've been talking to deaf people, taking classes, but it takes a while to get used to the structure just like, you know, again, any language.
So pidgin signed english (PSE), or Contact Sign as some people call it, is just the way that I sign.
Where I don't know how to structure the sentences and I probably put in a lot of words that aren't necessary.
But it's like taking a sentence and stripping it of the like, "these" and you know "a" all these words that don't really do much for a sentence
and just kinda, ya'know signing the main words to get the point across.
And the Signed Exact English or SEE, is signing every single word and visually representing the entire english language on the hands.
So how I came to understand this, was I was basically given an example of a sentence done in three different ways.
So think of the sentence
"I'm going to the store."
In Signed Exact English its, I'm going to the store
In Pidgin Signed English it's, I go store, you take out all of the "ings" and commas and bluugh.
And in signed exact english it's just, I'm going to the store, it's straight forward.
And in ASL it would be, Store I go, it's reversed in a way and there is a structure to it and a, this general rules that I'm still learning
and still trying to remember and still trying to ya'know use when I sign.
You might be wondering whats the point of SEE, signing every single word out
it's for kids, to teach them to read to teach them to write.
I had to take a class on this, this semester learning to use it, and sign every word with all of the just ya'know "apostrophe t's" and "apostrophe" urrgh it was just
it was bad but, it made me realize the use of it, because you like have to have a way to teach them English so they can read.
And it's a very big debate where they should teach them ASL first, or they should teach them SEE first, but we're not going to get into that.
Also you might not think that Signed Exact English method is ya'know, fun, but it's better than the Rochester Method
Which was s.p.e.l.l.i.n.g o.u.t e.v.e.r.y s.i.n.g.l.e w.o.r.d.
w.h.i.c.h i.s n.o.t f.u.n i.n c.a.s.e y.o.u w.e.r.e w.o.n.d.e.r.i.n.g
I mean, it is kind of fun because I can spell fast now, but having to do that for everything would be really not, not okay, with me.
Anyway, so just think of it that way.
It's better than what it could be.
So a random fact you should probably that is that there isn't just American Sign Language
There is British Sign Language, French Sign Language, Japanese Sign Language, Spanish Sign Language.
It's not just us, they all have their languages, and they all have their different ways of doing it in their countries
and you would think that we would be connected to ya'know English, England, London, Brittian, whatever, sign language because
ya'know we were connected to them historically and we speak the same language and all that jazz, but
we don't, they have a completely different alphabet, they have a completely different sign language.
And we're more connected to French sign language because the people who came over to teach deaf people in the early ya'know colonial times
were French, so they taught us French Sign Language, so that's where out sign language comes from, France.
The more ya'know!
Anyway, hope you learned more about sign language and Bye!
Today we are going to talk about different types of sign language.
Because the misconception is that there is only one kind of sign language.
When there are A LOT. Especially just in the United States.
So the three main types of sign language that you are going to see in the U.S. are A.S.L.
Which is American Sign Language
P.S.E. which is Pidgin Signed English
and then S.E.E. which is Signed Exact English
Now American Sign Language is the conversational language of deaf people.
It is just how they communicate.
It's their own way, it's their own language.
It has it's own grammar. It's not something you can just like pick up over night.
You have to spend time using the language to learn the language.
Just like you have to do in any other language like Spanish or French or anything.
Now like I said in the introduction, I'm not here to teach you ASL.
I'm here to teach you just vocabulary and get you started so that you can meet a deaf person, communicate with them and eventually become fluent in ASL
Because I'm not even fluent in ASL yet.
I've been talking to deaf people, taking classes, but it takes a while to get used to the structure just like, you know, again, any language.
So pidgin signed english (PSE), or Contact Sign as some people call it, is just the way that I sign.
Where I don't know how to structure the sentences and I probably put in a lot of words that aren't necessary.
But it's like taking a sentence and stripping it of the like, "these" and you know "a" all these words that don't really do much for a sentence
and just kinda, ya'know signing the main words to get the point across.
And the Signed Exact English or SEE, is signing every single word and visually representing the entire english language on the hands.
So how I came to understand this, was I was basically given an example of a sentence done in three different ways.
So think of the sentence
"I'm going to the store."
In Signed Exact English its, I'm going to the store
In Pidgin Signed English it's, I go store, you take out all of the "ings" and commas and bluugh.
And in signed exact english it's just, I'm going to the store, it's straight forward.
And in ASL it would be, Store I go, it's reversed in a way and there is a structure to it and a, this general rules that I'm still learning
and still trying to remember and still trying to ya'know use when I sign.
You might be wondering whats the point of SEE, signing every single word out
it's for kids, to teach them to read to teach them to write.
I had to take a class on this, this semester learning to use it, and sign every word with all of the just ya'know "apostrophe t's" and "apostrophe" urrgh it was just
it was bad but, it made me realize the use of it, because you like have to have a way to teach them English so they can read.
And it's a very big debate where they should teach them ASL first, or they should teach them SEE first, but we're not going to get into that.
Also you might not think that Signed Exact English method is ya'know, fun, but it's better than the Rochester Method
Which was s.p.e.l.l.i.n.g o.u.t e.v.e.r.y s.i.n.g.l.e w.o.r.d.
w.h.i.c.h i.s n.o.t f.u.n i.n c.a.s.e y.o.u w.e.r.e w.o.n.d.e.r.i.n.g
I mean, it is kind of fun because I can spell fast now, but having to do that for everything would be really not, not okay, with me.
Anyway, so just think of it that way.
It's better than what it could be.
So a random fact you should probably that is that there isn't just American Sign Language
There is British Sign Language, French Sign Language, Japanese Sign Language, Spanish Sign Language.
It's not just us, they all have their languages, and they all have their different ways of doing it in their countries
and you would think that we would be connected to ya'know English, England, London, Brittian, whatever, sign language because
ya'know we were connected to them historically and we speak the same language and all that jazz, but
we don't, they have a completely different alphabet, they have a completely different sign language.
And we're more connected to French sign language because the people who came over to teach deaf people in the early ya'know colonial times
were French, so they taught us French Sign Language, so that's where out sign language comes from, France.
The more ya'know!
Anyway, hope you learned more about sign language and Bye!