Amazon has recreated their logo (“Amazon” with a swoosh connecting the A and Z) in sign language. They’ve placed pictures of the appropriate hand gesture for each letter beneath the english-language text version.
I can’t imagine a more condescending gesture. I haven’t met many hearing impaired people, but surely there can’t be very many who understand only sign language (especially the letter-by-letter method) and can’t read those same letters in the english* alphabet.
What’s next, reading out announcements in braile? “left only, left right, right only, left right”
Um… would you consider it condescending if, as an example, you order from Amazon and a soundfile says something like “Thank you for ordering from Amazon!”? Or having an option to see the site in Spanish? Because that’s sort of what you’re protesting. Yes, most deaf people will be able to read Amazon. But what you’re describing more someone saying “Amazon” in their language.
As to whether or not it’s condescending… I’ll leave that to the deaf (and Deaf) folks to determine. You might consider that approach, especially given that you “haven’t met many hearing impaired people”.
I think this is the best example I’ve seen this week of trying too hard to be offended. But you’re in Tacoma. Walk down the street and register your complain in person. I’m sure they’ll give it all the consideration it merits.
Since the logo was created by Brendan Gramer, a designer at Amazon who has been deaf since birth and helped launch the Amazon affinity group for People with Disabilities, I don’t find it condescending at all.
Hard of Hearing person checking in…
There’s really nothing amazing about the Logo… It’s basically just the letters shown in fingerspelling. It reminds me of people who come up to me and tell me they can Sign, then start spelling the alphabet.
I wonder if they are seriously working on an Alexa ASL device. Has a camera and screen. You sign “Alexa” to initiate a task, it responds on the screen, etc.
In ASL, the word “Amazon” is spelled “My hovercraft full of eels”. I made myself risible by asking a friend who knew how to sign what the ASL signs were for verbs of being.
Regards,
Shodan
I don’t think there are signs for either the river or the warrior in ASL.
There are a few resources people can draw from for making new signs. They can use handshape, or movement of the hands in a mimetic kind of way to show how something looks - it’s shape, it’s size, it’s movement, how people interact with it, etc. Signers do this all the time, even for things they have signs for. They can also borrow a word from the majority language (for American signers that would be English). They can fingerspell it, e.g. A-M-A-Z-O-N (which is what’s on the T-shirt). They may shorten the fingerspelling, e.g. to A-Z-N. Sometimes they take the first letter of the word, and change it, or add a movement to it. It could be semi-random movement, just to distinguish it from other words starting with that letter, or the movement could also have a meaning. Some people sign Amazon (the company) by using A + moving the hand along the same curve as the arrow in the logo. Other people use the A handshape with the Z movement pattern. Another way of borrowing is to create a calque, a word-for-word translation, like if someone used a sign for Amazon river to mean the Amazon website.
I don’t know about American Deaf, but a lot of Australian Deaf people don’t really like calques. Fingerspelling and initialisms are fine though. Usually, when people shorten a fingerspelling, they just use the first few letters, or drop a bunch of letters in the middle. It looks like Z in Amazon sticks out to people.