Irish Sign Lingo week Dux!
Week 2 of the course and we were straight into it with such words as, he, she, her, his, have, where, am, do, busy, practice, exercise, work, deaf, hearing, there, from, after, live, in, school and wait! after the hard work of learning these words, we were on to even harder things like learning to count!! which believe it or not, is a lot harder than it sounds! there is a correct method to counting other than just pointing fingers! see here how its done! http://www.iol.ie/~johnpmon/numbers.html
Last night was a lot of fun, once the learning was out of the way, it was our turn to pin point a victim from across the room and ask them a question from the words we learnt this week and last, and then thy had to answer and then pick another person! I had to laugh when it was my turn to pick some one I? looked up allong the line of people to my right and everyone at once leaned backwards out of the way and almost fell out of their chairs!! Its funny when people are put on the spot they will do anything to weasle out of it!!
I was telling my lecturer who arrived allong again last night and who seems to be practicing very hard and showing me up on signs I didnt know!! I told her that I was putting up the notes on my blog for people who may be learning and might want them, and she sugested we do it for the college!! There is an internal Internet network within the college, and she said we should put the notes up there and get other students to check them out!! GREAT idea! Problem is, if you dont do the class you wont have a bulls notion of what im going on about in the notes as you will see here!! 
_____________________________________________
Sign Language Class 2: ( LHPD=left hand palm down etc.)
HE: Letter L from opposite shoulder to closest shoulder palm down
SHE: Letter S opposite shoulder to closest shoulder palm down
HER: Letter H on opposite shoulder bringing it to letter R on closest shoulder
HIS: LetterH on opposite shoulder bringing it to letter S on closest shoulder
Have: LHPU with right hand pinch left hand palm ( as if taking something out of it)
WHERE: LHPD make a circle with right hand, over the left hand and tap
AM: 2 Letter M jab down towards floor
DO: 2 letter D alternativly back and forth, palms facing each other
BUSY: 2 letter B alternativly back and forth, palms facing each other
PRACTICE: 2 letterP alternativly back and forth, palms facing each other
EXERCISE: 2 letter E alternativly back and forth, palms facing each other
WORK: 2 letter W alternativly back and forth, palms facing each other
DEAF: Letter D to your ear then flip hand to point at mouth
HEARING: Make a hook with index finger and place on chin
THERE: Make a gun shape with right hand (make sure thumb is down) then rest gun on LHPD
FROM: Letter F (palm toward floor) move hand from middle of body away from you to the right
AFTER: Same as from but with 2 letter F using both hands move in same direction
LIVE: Letter L moving hand from heart to neck (fingers facing chest)
IN: Letter U with left hand ( back of hand facing away from you)? then with right hand push letter I out over left hand
SCHOOL: Letter U with left hand ( back of hand facing away from you)? then with right hand? tap letter I on left hand twice
WAIT: Letter U with left hand ( back of hand facing away from you)? then with right hand Make a sawing action on left hand using letter I
:)
January 31st, 2006 at 5:25 pm
*brain breaks*
I must not learn {I|A}SL until I’ve got BSL under my belt. Really really must not…..
Your numbers break my brain because some BSL numbers (region depending) are different ones to the ISL.
No wonder the Irish girl at the BDA - she was a british deaf association employee who is from Dublin. Her first language is ISL, and she was in England,and had learned very Londonish BSL. My sign is very much NE variant and I was having to resort to SSE because my grammar sucks and it was a very technical discussion about computers. Much fingerspelling with my knackered hands fun!!
I bet she got confused with my numbers too. There are 4 different BSL number systems that I know of. I prefer the London variant, but I have to use the NE variant for my exam.
Do you know if ISL is regional?
Also, ASLers? How regional is ASL? Are there strong dialects and known different number systems? BSL is regional as all hell, 20 miles from here they use completely different signs. This makes for interesting “WTFness” allround.
January 31st, 2006 at 5:27 pm
Hi there
nope ISL is national language here, there is only one version of it!! though the curriculum of teaching it has changed and there are ’slang’ words so to speak! and an older version of some words, but its all the one language within Ireland 
January 31st, 2006 at 6:39 pm
ASL has a lot of regional signs and dialects. Which can be funny, as the sign for “borrow” is the same as the sign for “keep”. (Oddly enough, I was told that the same is true for BSL vs. NJ/MA-ASL. So maybe the midwestern sign for “borrow” is the same as the BSL sign? Of course, I don’t know the BSL sign so I’m just going by what I was told.)
February 1st, 2006 at 1:37 pm
I just did a minor research project (I’m in a master’s program at Gallaudet, for linguistics) that including learning a little about Irish Sign Language, and while it seems to be one unified language now, there historically were two (almost) mutually incomprehensible dialects- one for men and one for women! An American woman named Barbara LeMaster is doing ongoing work on documenting and analyzing the variants… I think this is super fascinating.
My dialect of ASL does not have homophonic BORROW and KEEP (the movement is different for me), but Sara’s right, there are tons of regional variations as well as other race- and class- based variations in words and also in grammar and usage. One of my professors just published a book called “What’s your sign for PIZZA” which is all about different regional variations.
February 1st, 2006 at 1:40 pm
Cecily, welcome.
Your professor’s book sounds interesting. (My sign for pizza is a “p” making the sign for “Z”. I learned it in Massachusetts. The sign that the people in NJ used looked more like the sign for sandwitch!)
Dialects in ASL are a bit more difficult than “dialects in English”.. Although “crisps” vs. “potato chips” and “chips” vs “french fries” and “rubbers” vs. “galoshes” (British-English vs. American-English) is somewhat confusing as well, I guess.
February 1st, 2006 at 2:14 pm
Welcome Cecily
February 1st, 2006 at 3:40 pm
Welcome Cecily!
February 1st, 2006 at 3:51 pm
Hi Cecily
February 1st, 2006 at 6:46 pm
The BSL sign for borrow is a bit like if you had your hands handcuffed together wrist to wrist with closed palms. It is a directional sign which when done towards yourself is and when done outwards towards the other person means .
This means that a lot of native BSLers in the UK will mix up the English words for lend and borrow - very like other foreign language speakers. Certainly I know Romanian has the same word for lend and borrow.
As for pizza, we have a C hand as if holding a triangle of pizza in front of face. Another sign which is the index finger drawing a circle of pizza. I’m also sure I’ve seen the fingerspelling of P and Z.
In the UK the regional variants seem to be very extreme for a country which isn’t much bigger than a US state. Even in a city
February 1st, 2006 at 6:48 pm
“closed palms” closed fists….
Apologies for incoherence, I think we have the flu ;(
February 1st, 2006 at 7:09 pm
Woooooo!! CECILY!! hoi and welcome! yeah I knew about the 2 languages between men and women, but I dont know much more than that!! wow cool, I also find that stuff super interesting!! so keep the facts comming
in ISL we usually spell Pizza, but the cool thing is, usually we finger spell ‘z’ using one index finger and make the shape of a ‘z’ but in the word Pizza , as there are 2 z’s together, we use 2 fingers to represent that!! which i find kinda funky!
*ok did that actually make any sence??!!
February 2nd, 2006 at 12:41 pm
Hello, to everyone
Just a note- when talking about whatever sign you use in your sign language, it would be helpful and interesting for me if people did NOT just say “letter P” (or whatever letter) because not all of these languages use the same alphabet. ISL and ASL are mostly the same, I think, but BSL is not, and my BSL alphabet skills are pretty rusty.
Barbara LeMaster’s ISL research page (with video clips!)
http://www.csulb.edu/%7Elemaster/irish.html
February 2nd, 2006 at 1:23 pm
Natalya (barakta), sorry you’re not feeling well. =\ Hope you feel better soon.
The “borrow” sign sounds like it’s more or less identical to the NJ “borrow”.
“keep” is two K-hands touching and moving in the direction of the person that is doing the borrowing. (The K-hands touch with the top hand’s pinky-side of the hand resting on the bottom hand’s thumb/index-side of the hand. And in ASL, the K-hand can be made as such: Index and middle finger raised in the shape of a V, with your thumb touching the back of the knuckle of your middle finger, and the rest of your fingers bent down as close to your palm as possible)
February 2nd, 2006 at 1:27 pm
Cecily, very good point about explaining the signs instead of just saying “letter p”. =]
In my pizza example, the “P” hand (which is actually also the “K” hand, just pointed in a different direction) is made like so: Index and middle finger form a V-shape (up and spread), tip of thumb touches the back of the knuckle-area on the middle finger. When this hand has the V pointing up, it’s a “K”, when the V is pointing down, it’s a P. Oddly, for “Pizza” the sign frequently ends up looking more like a K than a P. :p
The “Z” sign is just drawing the shape of the letter Z on the air. So “Pizza” is the P/K hand describing a Z on the air.
I’ve also seen the “C-shape” hand (only bent more into the shape of a triangle) and gesturing in front of the mouth like you’ll take a bite out of it.
February 2nd, 2006 at 2:10 pm
Note, I’ve put up a graphic illustrating the letters of ASL here: http://somewhatsilent.com/asl-letters/ It’s easily accessible via the “ASL Letters” link on the sidebar under “internal links”.
Hope that helps out some.
February 2nd, 2006 at 2:16 pm
(Incidentally, I like the ASL alphabet better than the BSL alphabet. It’s more symbolic/simplified and can then be combined into other signs to convey extra emphasis and meaning. However, I like the more spoken-language-like elements of BSL)
February 2nd, 2006 at 4:27 pm
and if I could only find a class so I could learn… (you know, one that’s not a $500/credit university class…) any ideas?
February 2nd, 2006 at 4:51 pm
Katie, where are you located, again?
Location-generic ideas:
-Sometimes churches that have deaf congregation will give free sign language classes to those that are interested in learning.
-Sometimes schools for the deaf (elementary, HS, college, etc.) will provide free/inexpensive courses.
-Sometimes charities such as the “Lion’s club” will raise money to pay for you to learn sign language if you’re deaf or hard of hearing.
-Sometimes local colleges will offer classes under the umbrella of “adult education”, and depending on the college, it is sometimes rather inexpensive.
-If you’re located in the United States, you can borrow “learn ASL” videos from the Captioned Media Program ( http://www.cfv.org/ ). They are free, and they ship for free with a return envelope. They have a wide variety of video learning material related to ASL.
February 2nd, 2006 at 4:54 pm
(Do other countries have anything similar to the Captioned Media Program? I’ve always wondered that.
)
February 2nd, 2006 at 5:16 pm
ok My bad with regards to not indicating the local sign for ‘p’ Im speaking completely in ISL terms, as I know no other sign im afraid
February 2nd, 2006 at 5:45 pm
Great suggestions- I’ll definitely explore them.
I am situated in the Boston area- lots of colleges around here.
Has anyone found learning from video to be effective?
February 2nd, 2006 at 5:47 pm
Lette, looks like the ISL alphabet is very similar to the ASL alphabet, with the following differences:
F (in ASL, the tip of the finger and thumb touch instead of crossing.
G (in ASL, the thumb and finger run parallel instead of touching
H (completely different sign in ASL)
K (completely different sign in ASL)
L (in ASL, the three fingers that do not make up the “L” shape (pinky, ring, middle) are bent.)
P (completely different sign in ASL)
Q (completely different sign in ASL)
S (looks like the sign for T? I can’t quite tell from the diagram that I’m looking at. Does the sign for “S” have the thumb between the fingers, or inside the closed fist? If it’s between, it’s our sign for T. If it’s inside the fist, it’s our sign for S.)
T (looks like the ASL sign for X)
X (different from ASL sign- our sign looks like the sign for T)
I found the ISL alphabet PDF here: http://www.irishdeafsociety.ie/home/WISL.htm
French sign (LSF) has a very similar alphabet too:
http://surdite.lsf.free.fr/alphabet_LSF.htm
I like the letter-signs for “H” in ISL and LSF much better than ASL. And LSF’s “X” is a thing of clarity and beauty. :p
February 2nd, 2006 at 5:49 pm
Lette, now that I’ve found the ISL alphabet online, I’m having fun practicing your signs. Hehe It’s fun to see how they resemble ASL signs, or difer from them.
Must. Stop. Addictive. ACK!
February 2nd, 2006 at 5:53 pm
Katie, that’s right. Boston. My old home-city. I’d definitely suggest contacting elementary and high schools in your area and asking them if they can recommend a low-cost or free ASL class, chances are they’ll be VERY helpful. Or if you already know some of the language, just find out when there are deaf events/deaf clubs in your area, and go. ASL is one of those things that are helpful to learn conversationally as well as supplement with video/books/etc.
As for if I’ve found videos to be helpful.. Meh. Moderately. Mostly for vocabulary. One of the really fun things to do, though, is to get some of the videos of ASL storytellers. It gives you a feel for the poetic and interpretive styles of the language.
February 2nd, 2006 at 6:11 pm
Again, awesome suggestions.
Yup, I know a little- I know some basics from when my hearing loss was discovered, the period where my parents weren’t sure which why they wanted to go with language… and I know some from an introductory course I took a couple years ago.
Lette, thanks for the updates on your classes! Your enthusiasm is contagious!
February 2nd, 2006 at 7:20 pm
Cecily: good point on saying which sign language one is referring to. I’ll try and remember that. What is your local sign language? You seem to know a lot about ISL…
I can actually fingerspell in ASL as well as a few signs. I’m not allowed to learn anymore until I’ve passed my bext BSL exam! Which reminds me, need to SMS sign tutor cos we’ve had the flu for 2 lessons worth ;(
Kim (my girlfriend) and I taught ourselves using stuff we found on the net so that we had a convenient 1 handed option. Most UK deaf people seem to know ASL fingerspelling as that is what everyone seems to default to when in international signing groups. I also get to use it to show people in sign class who think all sign languages are the same.
ASL fingerspell also looks better on my hands. I was born without thumbs so only have 4 digits on each hand. I had my index fingers converted into thumbs in a procedure called pollicisation. See pic of my right hand at http://www.barakta.org.uk/natalyahand.jpg . My left hand is very limited in motility/movement and all the digits are retracted due to excessive repeats of my arm surgery damaging the ligaments/tendons. I only have about 25% of normal movements so my sign is all a bit distorted - especially fingerspell. Newbies often struggle with my sign, but native signers quickly overcome their difficulties.
I also have an American friend from NYC who lives down the road who did some ASL classes at university. She, Kim, her partner and I often discuss ASL and BSL differences and teach one another stuff.
Kim used ASL fingerspell at me when she came out of an operation and only had one hand free and an oxygen mask on. I had to explain to the nurses she was signing and trying to communicate. She wouldn’t ’settle’ until I’d ‘translated’ and asked a number of questions for her. It also meant the nurses spoke to both of us slowly and clearly which suited me as they had strong African/Indian accents which I really can’t parse well.
February 2nd, 2006 at 8:35 pm
Sara, the sign in ISL for is is simply make a fist! thumb on outside of hand!! I love the comparisons with ASL but im trying not to look at ASl as ill get confused!! I think i really need to consentrate on ISL for now then i can experiment once im anyway good!! and that will take a while yet!!
Katie: No worries im usually happy to share experiences, but im just LOVING sign right now
so im sharing the love :p hehe!
February 2nd, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Lette- then the sign in ISL for “s” is the same as ASL for “s” (as long as the thumb is in front of the fingers and not off to the side which is “A”)
February 2nd, 2006 at 9:36 pm
Natalya,
It’s pretty wild how you know a mix of the different languages. Does it get confusing sometimes? Especially since it seems that you’re still in the “learning” stages of some of them. Sort of like learning English and French at the same time when your native language is Spanish. I’d probably lose my head. :p
My first thought upon seeing your hand was “that’s a beautiful hand”. I love hands, my mom was/is a palm reader. Second thought was wondering how your sign instructors are–the only classes I’ve ever taken in sign were run by insane militant evil people that made all sorts of ridiculous demands for accuracy despite physical limitations.
Kim is.. deaf too? (Trying to wrap my head around who Natalya and her Kim are.
) My significant other (L.) is a hearie. It introduces some interesting issues with understanding eachother’s experiences.
February 2nd, 2006 at 9:47 pm
sara, our ‘a’ and ’s’ are the same then
cool 
February 3rd, 2006 at 12:03 am
I don’t know enough ASL to be confused most of the time. Some of the BSL classifiers are slightly different, but nothing too confusing. From talking to my American friend the grammar of BSL and ASL are very similar, but there are different conventions which the user would have to understand. I learned most of what I know about the differences between sign languages from books and places on the net. If anyone wants me to dig out the web stuff I will do that.
I’m good at languages, something whch really surprised everyone around me. Apart from the ‘listening’ stuff on tape I was generally better than average and enjoyed learning them. I only had one teacher give me hassle and that was because she didn’t know I was deaf and then accused me of lying when I told her. She didn’t think deaf people should be ALLOWED to do languages!!
I got Bs in GCSE French and German which wasn’t bad considering I missed 30-50% of the classes due to illness. I attribute my marks to extremely good teachers who cared (one gave me one-to-one tuition after school); an understanding of the exam and syllabus so I could teach myself the stock answers (parrot learning ++) and the fact I got my listening tape exam read out to me by the teachers that I knew.
I tried to do more German at A-Level and University level but I couldn’t handle the very verbal/auditory nature of those classes. The A-level tutor was very sane at me and said unless I wanted to make a career out of it that the workload wasn’t worth it for anyone, nevermind me. The university tutor realised being nice about the deafness was effort and got annoying at me. I decided then that my linguistic learning would have to continue on my terms. I still intend to learn more German at least for reading and writing purposes.
My right hand is cool, I ought to get some better pictures taken with a decent camera… Might have to bribe nigel to let us play with his as we only have a crappy broken one at the moment. Your mum would have fun with my hands I’m sure!
I never had trouble with sign tutors and my hands. When I registered for stage 1, there was this lovely old tutor guy called Mick who was very intrigued by my hands and while he expressed concern that I might struggle he didn’t see why I shouldn’t try. A year later I met Mick at a signing event, he recognised me and was amazed at my sign and how much I’d learned. He said my hands weren’t that hard to read and that he was glad I had given it such a good go. I thanked him for being kind and giving me a chance.
My sign tutor Paul who I had for stage 1 and the first half of stage 2 is very strict about signing standards. I liked him a lot because he would take the time to work out if it was my hands, or just me making a mistake. Sometimes he would teach me an alternative sign (from another region) if my hands REALLY didn’t work well for a particular sign. He spoke to the examiner when I did my stage 1 exam and explained my hands. The examiner was also fine, in fact she was so impressed with my sign she asked if I had been to deaf school. She was surprised I’d only been learning sign for 9 months! I was very good at SSE and they don’t care about much grammar at that stage.
I find that deaf people in the Uk are very understanding of physical limitations. Most stage 1 courses seem to have at least one person who has learning difficulties of some kind, or who are deaf and have language issues. Maybe it helps that I am deaf myself, people automatically consider me as someone who has a right to sign without a ‘purpose’ as it were. I’m bever going to be a terp and I don’t fall into the ever present “I want to help the poor little deaf people” *vomit* category! Deaf people don’t have a problem with my hands after a few minutes of meeting them, it is usually the hearing people who struggle!
Kim isn’t deaf, she had severe glue-ear as a child which made her HOH. As a child she lived in Africa until just before starting school, so she was not only HOH but severely culturally shocked. She didn’t understand or like the other kids, had never been to nursery and hates primary school teachers to this day. We also think she has poor auditory processing abilities especially in noisy environments. Often people will assume she’s on drugs because she spaces out so badly. She has good hearing for things like fans in computers changing pitch, beeping, or other simple noises, but doesn’t seem to be able to make sense of speech a lot of the time
We don’t have too many deafie/hearie problems, in fact it is usually only when we are both tired and mishearing that we get cranky. We both share a hatred of phones, and a preference for textual communication especially where things are complex. We also both make good use of a preamble and repeats where necessary. She does sign classes with me so she can sign quite well which is useful for when I can’t be bothered with hearing aids.
We should do a thread about hearing and deaf partnerships and see what the others have to say. Maybe if I’m feeling articulate in the morning
February 3rd, 2006 at 2:49 pm
I use ASL. I’ve lived in Montana, Oregon, Los Angeles, Minnesota, and now DC, so I’m familiar with a few variations. When I lived in LA I had a friend from England and I learned a tiny bit of BSL, but it’s mostly dissipated at this point from lack of use. I know a little bit of LSF (French Sign Language) too, but only enough to know what it looks like, not enough to call myself anything like conversational. I’m in a graduate program at Gallaudet that focuses on sign language linguistics, so we end up reading about/discussing other variations of ASL and other signed languages a fair amount. It’s pretty interesting. There are a lot of sign languages out there waiting to be researched and documented.
February 3rd, 2006 at 5:11 pm
Cecily: Cool about the moving around and graduate program at Gaullaudet in sign linguistics. I’m merely into it as a hobby so far although I am looking for ways to get myself back into academia once my health problems resolve.
A lot of the literature about BSL that I have read relies heavily on ASL and Swedish sign for more comprehensive examples due to the scarcity of actual qualiy research into BSL. In fact I think most of the BSL research in this country is carried out by one of 5 well known people - most of them based in Bristol.
That reminds me I want to obtain a couple of books to read before my exams in May.