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!