I have a deaf friend who swears up and down that signers actually have ‘regional accents’ (with their hands, obviously) depending on where they learned sign language. She says different parts of the country teach in very subtle yet detectable ways, and that sign language readers can tell where a person is from due to these ‘accents.’
My friend is somewhat of a prankster and I’m very much a skeptic, but this sounds so crazy that I could almost believe it’s true.
Anyone else know for sure?
It is very true. ASL has so many regional variants that there are signs which are only used at CSUN.
Well, consider me stunned. I find the idea of accents in sign language fascinating. Can you describe, for example, what, say, a Boston accent would…um, look like?
It isn’t exactly the same as an accent, but signs used can vary depending where the person is from.
I’ve been signing for around 30 years, and having moved from place to place, I find myself using regional signs without realizing it… until someone suddenly looks at me with a totally confused look on their face. That’s when I have to stop and figure out what it is I’ve signed that might not be used wherever I live.
Luckily, Deaf people love seeing and learning new signs… So it isn’t too embarrassing!
Yes, there are small differences in American Sign Language as it is used in various places in the U.S. and other countries:
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ase
You should know some things: First, there are about 130 mutually unintelligible sign languages in the world. Second, there is no necessary relationship between the sign language used in a country and the spoken language used there. Thus, American Sign Language is used in some countries outside of the U.S. that don’t have English as the national language. However, British Sign Language is a mutually unintelligible language. American Sign Language is actually closer to French Sign Language, since it was created partly by some French Sign Language users. Third, just like spoken languages, sign languages have dialects depending on the region where a user learned to sign.
I wonder if sign-language users from New Orleans have signs for “Po-Boy”, “Neutral Ground” and “Where y’at?” that would leave a puzzled look on the face of someone not from New Orleans (similar to the look on YOUR face right now if YOU’RE not from New Orleans).
It’s possible that there’s a special sign for po-boy among users among American Sign Language Users in New Orleans. What would be the point of a special sign for “Where y’at?”. It means the same thing as “Where are you at?”. It’s unlike that there is a special sign for Neutral Ground. It’s not important enough to require a special sign. After all, if it doesn’t get abbreviated in New Orleans English, why should it get abbreviated in Sign? Incidentally, lots of people outside New Orleans know what a po-boy is and that people there say “Where y’at?”.
Agreed. I think people are thinking that one sign = one word, which isn’t necessarily true.
That’s partly why deaf kids have a hard time learning English. For instance the one word “cold” can have many meanings. Each of the following would be signed totally differently, and not necessarily even use a sign for “cold”
“Have a cold”
“He was acting really cold”
“I’m cold”
“In cold blood”
“The trail went cold”
Regional differences in signs are one of the causes of funny stories about mistranslation. In one case I was around for, an interpreter from the New England area was interpreting a Christmas song. She was using the sign she had learned for “Santa Claus”, a hand pointing with the index finger moved to the forehead. Deaf people started giggling, because in Florida, this was a sign for “horny.”
I’ve also heard from deaf people that there’s a noticeable difference between people who learned in college classes and people who learned ASL from interacting with deaf people.
To give a concrete example, the sign for “bullshit” is generally given as arms folded in front of you, one on top of the other, with the index and pinkie finger on the top hand making a bull’s horns. However, I’ve also seen it “pronounced”
With the other hand pushing out, to symbolize defecation.
The other hand pushing out, with fingers wiggling
The other hand pushing out, fingers wiggling, and rocking the arms up and down which, I think, means “BIG bullshit.”
Of course there are left-handed and right-handed variants of this, but I don’t know if those are “accents” or just quirks.
And there are regionalisms. The sign for St. Louis, for example, is the manual alphabet letter “L” swept from one side to the other in the shape of an arch. I don’t believe it’s an “official” sign of ASL, but something that was created and then picked up.