“Are there more Gay deaf men than hearing deaf men?”
Now that was truly stupid!
What I meant was, “Is there a higher proportion of Gay deaf men than Gay hearing men?”
I heard that recently some signs were changed because they were considered offensive; for instance the sign for “Fiji” was changed from imitating an Afro haircut, and the sign for “gay” was changed from a limp wrist.
Is this true? If so what other words were changed? And what was the reaction to this? If it is true it seems strange that there is a central body regulating language use, do people continue to use the old signs? And if so how are this perceived?
thanks, and great thread by the way.
The s.o. and I have often wondered about the following situation. A deaf person is communicating via speaking, the listener assumes the deaf person is actually mentally handicapped (or whatever the PC term is), or makes some sort of subconscous association, then treats the deaf person accordingly. We’ve mused about the ensuing frustration, and, though I hesitate to admit this outloud, would find it hilarious on a kids in the hall type show. Now don’t get me wrong, people treating other people like they are stupid or mentally handicapped (yes, i know there are differences, dont jump on me for that) is irritating in real life (it happens to me all the time), but the thought of the deaf person trying say that they are NOT mentally handicapped in any way to someone who firmly believes they are (and thus demonstrates their mental handicap) is just a bit funny.
So my question is this: has that ever happened to you? Do people ever treat you like you are mentally incapable? I’m sure it would be more common with strangers, especially if they have had no experience with a deaf person before.
And thanks for the thread, this is educational and interesting!
My youngest cousin was born deaf, and eventually married a deaf girl. His son and his (hearing) sister’s two children were about the same age (2-4yrs) the first time I saw the. All three children were able to communicate much more clearly using sign language. And I cracked up the first time I saw one of the kids ask her mother in sign language what the “hearing” word was for a certain concept. They were well in advance of their age groups (according to their grandmother, who was a teacher) in language comprehesion. I was also impressed by the fact that they were able to tell someone when something was wrong much younger, instead of getting frustrated and screaming.
In college they informed me that I would have to take some language credits in order to graduate. So, seeing as I had no desire what so ever to learn French, or Spanish, signed up for ASL. (Signed up? Hehe! I’m so punny!)
I fell in love. I ended taking two years of classes. Because UND (University of North Dakota) is just down the way from the North Dakota school of the Deaf in Devils Lake (State run) we had a huge deaf culture and teaching base.
After the first semester, we were not allowed to use voice in class. It was consitered rude to our teachers. Class was team taught by a husband and wife, and they put a lot of emphasis on culture. We had parties all the time for local deaf people to come and “Speak” to us. And yes, it was always loud!
Some of the best classes were the “talk story” classes. For example, my teacher explained how when she left the care of the deaf school, she didn’t understand that there were some “unaceptable” noises to make in public. Like farting. She said the first time she “pooted” in public she was confused at all the looks she was getting. A freind explained the whole “Fart noises are private, burping is alright with an excuse me, and sneezing is always ok.”
The time all the students went into the hallway on break and exchanged swear word signs was really fun. Especially after our teachers caught us, and then corrected our signs! (No no, you sign asshole like this…) 
I always feel awkward in public though. I know I sign with a hearing accent, so I’m reluctant to join in conversations with native speakers. I was once told that as long as try my best, and take corrections well, no deaf people would mind my stumbling signs. Is this true? If so, how do I start a converstaion? I was taught that asking were you went to school is always good, because then you can establish who you know in common.
I’m even thinking of joining another ALS class, just to meet some other people who enjoy sign. Would this be a good way to introduce myself to other like minded people?
Thanks for this post!!! I miss the people I met during school, and am eager to widen my world.
Is ASL any more or less difficult to learn as an adult compared to other languages? I don’t have a cite handy, but I’ve heard that something changes in your brain as you age that makes it fundamentally difficult to learn a new language after a certain age; does ASL have the same (or a similar) problem?
Places like EnableMart.
Here’s an alarm clock and a really loud (95 dB ringer!) phone.
EnableMart also has a lot of products for the vision-impaired and for other disabilities.
Today’s Brain Fart Question for Ask the Deaf Person is:
Can/do deaf people play ‘charades’?
I mean, think about it.
There are so many elements for cheating involved…I told you it was a brainfart.
What do you think about closed captioning?
I watch alot of CC on television (so as not to wake the roommates when I watch late at night). I find some shows have brilliant CC (Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Antiques Roadshow) and some have crappy CC (whoever’s typing it can’t seem to understand) but ALOT of shows don’t have CC at all - especially older shows in syndication.
Most movies on DVD have CC but I have found many that don’t.
How do you deal with this? Does it make you mad or do you just give up on trying to watch some shows? Are there many deaf people who feel strongly about captioning or do people just not care?
I’m a hearing person and it drives me up the wall 
Do you have a website (preferred) or book recomendation on ASL grammar? I like the baby sign books I’ve found, but they leave out combining signs to make simple sentences. If I want to sign “Please don’t touch that hot stove.” I can find signs for it (No, Touch, Stove, Hot) but what word order do I follow?
I know I could make it up and as long as my baby and I understand it, that’s the important thing for us, but if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it right so she can speak with deaf people later in life. The sites that I’ve found have good dictionaries, but nothing on grammar.
Wasafiri great thread!
I am hearing and so is my mother, but both her parents, sister and brother are deaf as are many of my cousins. I am very lucky to hear.
Just a few things to ask or add to your discussion:
My relatives were all educated at deaf schools in Missouri or California and they hate SEE with a passion as do my two hearing cousins that work as interpreters. They say that ASL is the only way to go. I’m really not sure why they feel this way, but they do.
I am pretty good at signing, but all my deaf relatives live in California and I live in Florida. We just got a video cam for our TV to be able to see and communicate with them out in CA. These video relay things seem to now be all the rage in the deaf community. Do you have one?
My cousin was the DJ at the California Deaf School for many years. You should see the size of his speakers.
My relatives are proud to be deaf and probably would NOT want to be able to hear now even if they could. They have been very successful people and are proud of Deaf Culture and see themselves as not being different at all. And to tell you the truth, after hanging with them for a day or two, I just forget that they are deaf at all. I also tend to think in ASL after a week or so of being around them and I found myself after a month long visit of with them of even my dreams being partly in sign.
If you think deaf people are silent, you are crazy. My relatives make all types of noises that after being around them, you can even tell what some of these noises mean (like their kids names) even though these noises do not sound anything like the word they are trying to say. You should also see how animated my uncle can get when he’s telling you a story. I think deaf people tell the best jokes just because of the facial expressions.
Also my relatives love closed captioning. Before it was government mandated, you had to buy a box (back in 70’s) and hook it up to your TV. It was really slow and behind the voice and most shows it did not work at all.
For all my relatives except my immediate family, ASL was their first language whether they were deaf or not and most do not read lips because no one was talking.
Keep up the good work and education Wasafiri!
Oh yeah Wasafiri one last thing. My 81 year old aunt just moved into an all deaf seniors apartment complex in Fremont, CA. I believe it’s the first of its kind in the USA?? The place is brand new and all the apartments come with the built in flashing lights for the phone, doorbell, fire alarm etc and each apartment comes with a video relay. We helped my aunt move into the place and all the seniors were so excited and proud of the place. You left the place feeling good for them and proud of the apartment complex. If I were a deaf senior, I’d want to live there, would you?
Thanks for the spit take, Poonther! 
I am enjoying this thread. I wish my HS had offered ASL as a language option.
Great thread, Wasafiri! (and thanks to the mod who moved the thread, as I don’t generally hang out in GD)
I’m congenitally deaf - profoundly so - grew up learning SEE, which mutated into ASL as I grew up and hung out with more deaf people. It also helped that I went to Gallaudet for a semester in university. However, I’m also primarily oral since my parents sent me to CID in STL for 4 years, and that particular training stuck. Pronounciation’s gotten a lot lazier over the years, unfortunately.
Given this background, I agree with the previous posters about the glaring difference between SEE and ASL. My family still uses a lot of SEE, and I inevitably wind up finding myself showing them the ASL sign replacement for whatever they were using when I go home for visits.
CC and RWS (Rear Window System) are godsends. Sesame Street and the news were about the only TV shows that were captioned when I was a babychild. Did wonders for my reading comprehension, but I also got left out of the loop a whole lot. I still go to the movies as per usual even if they aren’t RWS-enabled, but I usually wind up doing research beforehand (reading reviews, spoilers, etc) and/or peppering my movie companions with plot and detail questions about what went on.
This does influence my choices of movies to see in the theater, however – for example, I still remember that ‘A Few Good Men’ was a plane movie. Bored me beyond tears, although I’m sure it would’ve been fascinating if I’d seen it with captions.
Recent examples would be Sin City and the Incredibles. Watched both, loved them. And I finally got around to renting the Incredibles on DVD to get what I think of as ‘the other half’ of the movie (plot, dialogue jokes, etc). Also – I bless Peter Jackson and the New Line folks for captioning the DVD extras on the LOTR stuff – an incident of stunning rarity that I pretty much keeled over in shock when I tested the DVDs.
One minus is that British movies are still pretty much inaccessible unless the studio’s taken pains to re-release the Region 1 DVDs with captions. The fact that I cannot see Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere series due to lack of captions/subtitles makes me want to cry.
Speaking of which, there was a recent kerfluffle regarding the gummint agency whose duty it is to caption TV shows – apparently they’d cut a bunch of TV shows from the list due to “budget” constraints, but some people were screaming ‘censorship!’ since the balance of the list tended to lean toward more ‘liberal’ TV shows. I don’t have a cite on me, but it didn’t get a lot of attention, unfortunately. If anyone’s interested, I’ll see if I can dig it up.
As for music – I’ve got a small collection of the stuff, generally old school rock and more recent alt/black/death metal. Yay for musicthumpenboom! The CD currently living in my car player is Green Carnation’s ‘Days of Light, Days of Darkness’.
Uhm. What else? Waking up. I have a high-powered alarm clock with an extension that vibrates (please no jokes. I’ve heard them all, thanks much) and fits into a pillowcase. I specifically picked one that plugs into the wall as the battery powered ones are too dinky to wake me up – when I’m asleep, I could give actual dead people a run for their money.
Trillionaire – Yep. Frex, an old sign for ‘Chinese’ used to be using your pointer fingers to pull at the outer corners of your eyes. Amazingly politically correct, innit? (FTR, the current sign that I’m aware of is to draw your pointer finger from your opposite shoulder to the other shoulder, then straight down your chest – this refers to the shirtfront flap on the… well, the stereotypical Chinese high-collar shirt/dress)
There’s no real central ‘body’ of language administrators. It’s all driven by the great process of osmosis, like any other language. Otherwise, how would American English ever have diverged from UK English? Or the words ‘w00t’ or ‘ginormous’ have made their way into common usage.
This is a wonderful thread!
I was wondering if your experience was the same as a classmate of mine in graduate school. This gal was deaf and was the art therapist at a school for deaf and hearing impaired children.
One thing she told us is that when hearing parents have a child who is deaf, often the Mom is the only one who learns sign, so the child ends up really having no relationship with the Dad. Is this still true? (I graduated in 1993). I was appalled to think that a parent couldn’t be bothered to learn how to ciommunicate with his child. The other thing she told us is that hearing families will often stress lip reading, vocalizing, and other means of communication easier for the hearing to understand, as opposed to ASL for their child who is deaf, and resist placement in a school for the deaf. Have you found this to be true?
Another thing that came up over and over in the art therapy portion of my association with my classmate is that folks who are deal are much more likely to write words on their artwork…this is not usual for hearing people. She said she thought it had to do with these children’s need to communicate and their focus on expressing themselves.
This gal was married to a man who was deaf and had a daughter who could hear. Sometimes the daughter would come to class to interpret. She was a delight. The other professional interpreters we had were also just wonderful. That whole experience helped each of us in class understand better how to communicate to someone who is deaf. I will never forget it.
Yeah, some signs have changed over time. The ‘old’ sign for Africa used to be considered very offensive, so it was changed. There’s no central body that ‘regulates’ signs. Think of it like a bottom-up movement. Someone comes up with the new sign, it spreads, etc.
It depends on their parents whether or not they learn ASL before English. Usually the poor kids spend their first few years of life (assuming they were born deaf) without structured language until they go to school and start years behind the other kids in communication ability.
However, in general, more accessibility is always a good idea.
I wake up with the aid of an alarm clock. Only difference is mine vibrates instead of making noisy noises.
There are portable ones.
Although, when I’m away, I just set my cell phone alarm. On silent mode, it vibrates instead of making noisy noises. Ta-da!