PSL - People Sign Language

Capmeister said:
The male sign is supposedly for the hats that men and boys wore, whereas the female sign is supposedly for the bonnet strings women used to tie their bonnets on.
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Exactly. Attributing social status to the signs is something that has occured when hearing people unfamiliar with Deaf culture and etiology of individual signs try to compile dictionaries and teach that with which they have insufficient knowledge. I did a paper on jsut this subject as an undergraduate.
 
jillio said:
Exactly. Attributing social status to the signs is something that has occured when hearing people unfamiliar with Deaf culture and etiology of individual signs try to compile dictionaries and teach that with which they have insufficient knowledge. I did a paper on jsut this subject as an undergraduate.
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Interesting. So was it just the sex signs, or others that people did that with?
 
Reba said:
It's just like the women who want to change English words:

manhole = personhole (sounds nasty)

history = herstory

spokesman = spokesperson

man hours = person hours


. . . and heaven forbid a man holds open the door for one of them!
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There are already a lot of changes made through ASL to equalize roles.

I've been part of various organizations and some of them have "Chairperson" or "Sportsperson", etc.
 
Lol, Vampy; actually, I had a little different interpretation on the "Spam". I think is means that the deviant person should be made to eat a can of Spam three times a day for 18 months. Lol, Spam's very versatile, ya know......
 
Capmeister said:
Interesting. So was it just the sex signs, or others that people did that with?
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Mostly it was with positioning of signs to indicate gender related status, and translating that into etiology based on social status. (i.e. male signs being placed at the forehead, and female signs at the chin due to the fact that males are societally dominate). I maintain that teaching that etiology of sign placement implies gender bias within the Deaf community that did not exist prior to hearing misinterpretation of the etiology. It perpetuates misunderstanding between the hearing and Deaf cultures.
 
Tousi said:
Lol, Vampy; actually, I had a little different interpretation on the "Spam". I think is means that the deviant person should be made to eat a can of Spam three times a day for 18 months. Lol, Spam's very versatile, ya know......
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Yuck! That's a punishment worse than death!
 
Capmeister said:
The male sign is supposedly for the hats that men and boys wore, whereas the female sign is supposedly for the bonnet strings women used to tie their bonnets on.
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And the position of MAN and WOMAN, or MOTHER and FATHER has to do with their relative heights, is what I've been told. Men are generally taller than women, and ASL is a visual language.

This woman is out of her mind. Or should I say womyn? (My suspicion is she spells it that way.)

Nesmuth said:
I see it as a language that could be understandable by the global deaf community like Esperanto.
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There is already Gestuno.

International Sign - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I've seen it used at international conferences such as Deaf Way II.
 
I strongly disagree with people SL its too damn confusing and making up... i rather stick to ASL... i bet that person just make the signs up... how SAD of her...
 
One thing I can't help but notice is how right-centric this is. Even though I understand the intention for gender equality and all, I'm a left-hander. The concepts explained refer to left and right parts of the face, and in this case, it was using her right. As a left-handed signer, this PSL would make things alot more complicated for both the signer and the viewer. For starters, one would then have to stop and think "ok, WHO'S right/left" when you're both facing across each other. With "old-fashioned" ASL...unless someone's hanging upside-down, everyone's upper/lower views of the face remains the same.
 
People Sign Language is very odd and confusing. I'll pass.
 
Why do people keep trying to reinvent the wheel? No one is trying to reinvent oral language....why do they attempt it with signed langauge? I just don't get it.
 
jillio said:
Why do people keep trying to reinvent the wheel? No one is trying to reinvent oral language....why do they attempt it with signed langauge? I just don't get it.
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Because some people are just plain stupid thinking they can do wonders for the poor deaf people without even asking for our input. :roll:
 
shel90 said:
Because some people are just plain stupid thinking they can do wonders for the poor deaf people without even asking for our input. :roll:
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Exactly. It just drives me nuts. You have hearing people coming up with MCEs and saying, "Let's take a signed language and rearrange it to fit the syntax of our language." Do you see Deaf people walking around trying to come up with a system that will rearrange English syntax into ASL syntax? It nothing more than ignorance regarding languages and deafness, the differences in visual and auditory processing, and a huge attitude of paternalism and superiority on the behalf of those that are attempting to fix something that isn't broken.
 
Jillio and Shel are spot on about audism being a prime factor in wanting to make ASL fit the "needs" of the hearing.

Another factor is the urge to change what is established solely because it's established. It happens to spoken English to legitimize laziness. Hey, if we make ain't a word, then we ain't ignorant, they is. It happens in written English. if every1 dont rite capitols n punctuation n spells "alot" like this than we r write n they r wrong,,,no watt i mean
 
While I don't care much for the flack that I get from some ASL deaf regarding my English 'accent', ASL is fine as it is. Why reinvent the wheel? :roll:
 
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