The FAMILY family

One of the first signs any new signer learns is FAMILY. The ASL University page on FAMILY gives a few other signs in the FAMILY family -- i.e., signs that are made by taking two letter handshapes, palms out, thumbs touching, and circling them around so that they are facing the signer with pinkies touching (roughly, of course, depending on the letter).

But I'm a collector, and curious as the proverbial cat, so today at work I asked the Geometer for signs that correspond to every letter of the alphabet. Unsurprisingly, not every letter is assigned a meaning. But here are the signs in the FAMILY family:

• Double A: AGENCY


• B: BUREAU or BRANCH


• C: CLASS (the ASL University page also lists CATEGORY)


• D: DEPARTMENT


• E: ENTOURAGE (either slangy or otherwise nonstandard)


• F: FAMILY


• G: GROUP


• I: ISOLATED (this doesn't fit the pattern, and the reason is simple: it's actually Signed Exact English, not ASL)


• L: LEAGUE


• O: ORGANIZATION


• P: PARTY (again, this is SEE, and shouldn't be used with culturally Deaf people)


• R: REGION (he said this is a rare one -- the ASL Browser has a slightly different sign, but I'd consider them to be mutually intelligible)


• S: SOCIETY


• T: TEAM


• U: UNION (he said this one is rare as well; the ASL Browser has a completely different sign, but I wonder if one would be used in the context of "Steelworkers Union Local 547" and the other would be used in the context of "European Union")

Got all those? One motion and the manual alphabet, and now you know a dozen new signs. I keep wanting to make up meanings for the vacant ones -- like MEMBERSHIP for M or KIN GROUP for K. But I think I ought to learn more than a couple hundred signs before I go making up new ones!

A beginning, and a STORY

I am not Deaf. I do not have a Deaf child, a Deaf boyfriend, or a Deaf parent. I am not hearing impaired. I am not in danger of becoming hard of hearing (HoH). I don't want to be a professional ASL/English interpreter. I have no plans to quit my job and go to Gallaudet full-time. Actually, I love my job, and it has nothing to do with Deafness (though I have a good number of Deaf colleagues).

I'm studying ASL for entirely selfish reasons: I want to learn it; I want to be able to talk to Deaf people; I want to be a part, even tangentially, of Deaf culture.

A lot of people who learn ASL, especially after childhood, are Hearing, and I'm just another member of that group. This blog is both for my own personal edification -- I'd like to document my learning process for future reference -- but also hopefully can be a resource, someday, for other Hearing people who are thinking about studying Sign.

So there's my opening argument. Let's move onto the Sign, shall we?

Before I get into any linguistic stuff, let me share my proficiency: I'm currently finishing up ASL 1 (taught by a Deaf professor) at my local community college; I take a weekly all-levels class with a Deaf colleague at work; and I often torture my Deaf friends at work with my hesitant, inaccurate signing.

So about that last one -- I had lunch on Thursday with a Deaf work friend, and I had a great story I just had to tell him. Of course, I got off on the wrong foot immediately: I signed, I HAVE STORY FOR YOU,* but I used the sign for STORY that my ASL professor uses. My friend -- let's call him the Geometer -- looked confused. He fingerspelled back, S-T-O-R-Y? (He must've read my lips or gotten it from context.) YES, I signed. Then he corrected my sign, using this one instead.

My professor's version is similar, but instead of singling out the middle fingers, she uses all the fingers for the same motion. (Actually, it's a little too close to COMFORTABLE for my comfort.) I'm happy to switch to the Geometer's sign; it seems less ambiguous than my professor's. It makes me wonder, though, if people regularly switch between signs depending on who they're talking to.

It's a question that interests me because I can't think of an English analogue. I guess the closest I can think of is changing your vocabulary to jibe with someone else's regionalisms or even education level. But that second one isn't apt at all -- the Geometer and my professor are both very intelligent, well-educated people, and switching between (simple) signs that have the same meaning isn't like dumbing down your speech when talking to a child. Regionalisms might be a better comparison -- in fact, it reminds me a lot of going to school in Boston and being confronted with phrases that had no meaning to me ("bubbler" for "water fountain," "frappe" for "milkshake," etc.)

I have to admit, it's a little overwhelming for a beginner. It's one thing to be in the classroom, where your professor knows exactly what vocab you do and don't know; it's another thing entirely to be in the middle of a conversation with someone who's Deaf and just has to tell you about the cute girl he met on the Metro last weekend. It's the lab versus the real world.


*Told you I had a Hearing accent!!