Aside from spelling out one’s name with letters in sign langauge, are there special signs for people’s names in ASL (American Sign Language)?
Good question. In the same vein: what about slang phrases?
Are they used? For some reason, I just can’t see two deaf guys signing to each other, “This new Spielberg movie’s da shit, yo”. But maybe I’m wrong?
I am by no means an expert, but I did just finish a first-year ASL class. We learned that personal names aren’t used for direct address the way we use them in English–you wouldn’t sign “Hi, Mary, how are you?” but “Hi, how you?”
Deaf children are usually given name signs using the first letter of their name when they enter residential schools. Or if their parents are Deaf, they get a name sign at birth. Name signs can be arbitrary or descriptive (derived from physical characteristics). Descriptive name signs are usually given by peers and are almost always replaced with an arbitrary name sign in adulthood.
Hearing people shouldn’t invent a name sign for themselves (outside an environment like an ASL class) but may be given one by a Deaf person if they are part of the Deaf community.
Hope that’s helpful; I’m sure one of the Deaf posters or somebody else who knows more sign can elaborate.
Shoot, I forgot to say that you still fingerspell your name when introducting yourself.
Yeah, there sure are. Got myself my own name in sign language cause its kinda pointless for people call my name by voice. Its a combination of ‘C’ & ‘photograph’ cause its my first initial & I did photography before.
Sometimes I give people their name-sign. A cutie college student I saw monday likes candy & her name is Kimmi, so I gave her a name-sign combination K+candy. Boy, was she ever excited.
In my personal experience, some slang phrases are used.
There’s this guy at work, Mike, who is deaf, and when he first got on the job, they had an interpreter for him, so he could get trained in on how to install seats on a bus.
Well after a couple of weeks, he found out what everyone finds out, that the quality assurance people are jerks. So one day a QA was telling the person training him in that he should know this and that he should know that and, that if he, Mike, does it wrong they are going to reject it. Meanwhile the interpreter is standing behind the QA, signing the whole conversation to Mike.
QA then leaves, Mike signs to the interpreter and she’s saying out loud what he’s signing “He’s an … he’s a what? I don’t know that.” Mike spells out A-S-S-H-O-L-E. She says “Oh, they don’t teach us slang terms, but now I know.”
And so does everyone else who was on the bus, so everytime a QA walks by we just sign to 'em, asshole.
Every known sexual profanity & then some has an equivalent in sign language. You have to buy a special book though to know what the signs are. ‘Asshole’ has its own signs but there are regional variations.
When new people ask how to sign words like ‘thank you’ I teach them something dirty instead.
With a name like imthjckaz you’d want a name-sign.
I asked my sister, who works with learning disabled kids (most of whom are deaf) about this. Here’s her take:
"Most people make up one sign for people’s name. Like when you first meet someone, they will sign their name and then give you a sign for their name. I am usually the sign for C put against my shoulder. It is usually the first letter of the name.
“I know that there are some slang words, but as far as words like YO, I really have no idea!”
One slang term that I’ve seen several of her kids use is “girl, stop!” It’s the sign for girl (thumb running down side of face) morphing into stop (striking the palm of one hand with the outside edge of the other). But what makes it is the body language; the more attitude you can show, the better.
My sister also mentioned that a guy named James Woodward has assembled a number of specialty ASL dictionaries. He may also have a slang dictionary, but since slang changes so much, it’s probably out of date.