sound is half of what people see

Dojang

Dojang

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i'm a hearie...who can't even sign? i'd better makes some excuses quick before the mods boot me out the window.

My name's Rex, and i'm a 21 yr old Australian uni student.
long dark curls. glasses. strong hands with chewed fingernails. hauntingly deep blue eyes.
My major is computing, but my passion is animation.

Recently i've been looking into learning sign language. initially, i'd figured that Auslan would be a straightforward and logical transfer of the english language into hand symbols- and that the martial arts classes i took in highschool would give me the coordination and muscle pattern memory to pick it up pretty quick-

but as you know it's not like that at all. to make matters worse- apparently so few people (hearing impaired people included) are using Auslan- it's actually being committed to a dying language registry.

and then i learn that sign languages aren't so much translated english as languages hobbled together from english, natural gesture and heuristic change over the years- with a great emphasis on context, familiarity with an individual and gestural emotion.

it's all a lot to take in...i'm a little lost. i'd appreciate it if someone could clue me in on what language i should learn, if not auslan, and whether anyone knows anyone in hobart/tasmania who could help me learn it.


so in short, i'm here to learn to communicate- and hopefully make some friends along the way. i'm a fan of people. and that's all people- i think it sucks that right now you and me would probably have to fumble for pen and paper just to say hi.

oh hey, and i'd love to share/test out some of my animations with you guys- there's an old animation saying: "sound is half of what people see", but don't let that get you down, i've been doing this stuff for close to a decade, and i can confirm that sight is also half of what people hear.

(also, i'm a good enough animator that i can animate hands and natural gesture, if anyone wanted to hire me for some kind of education project)
 
as with any person who uses the internet as their personal external memory, i of course flicked through wikipedia first of all.

this dying language thing has me spooked though- a lot of trouble to take to be the last one speaking it- what're the odds that australians would be using ASL?
 
If you learn Auslan, then you are doing your part to keep the language alive. Tis a nobel goal and the Australian Deaf will probably appreciate it.

There are a number of items in your post that I do not agree with, but I will leave that alone for now. Instead, I encourage you to find a Auslan class to learn the language and the culture.

And finally - Welcome to the Alldeaf community! :)
 
Welcome! :)

p.s. PLEASE don't use the term "hearing impaired". We hate it.
 
Dojang said:
as with any person who uses the internet as their personal external memory, i of course flicked through wikipedia first of all.

this dying language thing has me spooked though- a lot of trouble to take to be the last one speaking it- what're the odds that australians would be using ASL?
Click to expand...

Maybe JClarke will wander in. As a deaf person teaching Auslan, he may take issue with your ideas.
 
@AlleyCat-(and everyone else who read this)- sorry! i'm kinda new to all this, i don't really know the terminology. thinking about it now, that was kind of a stupid slip up. you guys definitely aren't impaired.
i guess at the time i though just saying 'deaf' kinda felt mean, like calling a dwarf 'short', or calling me 'ugly', but is that the way to go?

@Cheetah- if i've said something wrong, talk to me. i don't want to step on any toes, but i can see i'm already doing that. part of the process, i guess. also- i'm not a linguist, i'm interested in learning to sign in a functional capacity. it's not my responsibility to keep a language alive, but it is my responsibility to learn to communicate with people. if the australian deaf aren't actually using auslan, then there's no real point in me learning it. if the australian deaf are learning ASL, or something else, then it's my responsibility to learn that, or whatever else it is.

i don't know quite how accurate all this talk about auslan dying out is- it just seemed to be a common theme on the websites i visited. including the auslan site.
...in the face of the decreasing numbers of deaf sign language users (a decrease which is projected to accelerate)...
i'd love to hear from someone involved in auslan.

man, i'm such a nerd. every time i type auslan, i keep thinking that it'll be a national LAN (local area network) party of some kind. i'll get used to it though.

thanks for your welcome and gracious understanding, guys.
 
:welcome: to AllDeaf forum. I don't know what to say here, but I hope you enjoy reading and posting all the threads here. See you around here. :wave:
 
G'day, Fellow aussie.
deaf australian here - and fluent in AUSLAN and ASL.
How can I help you? :lol:

Btw, welcome to AD! :wave:
 
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