Tousi, Yes, I interpreted that to mean that if you were signing thank you to one person but there was another person behind you, the person behind you could think the gesture was 'me ne frego'.
What exactly is your motivation for learning ASL?
I have found Italians to be a gigantic arrogant people, French being number 2... Just my opinion.
Laura, sorry if you find this offended, but aren't you an Asian by origin anyway via your avatar??? Also, "Lau2046" looks pretty much like the famous Chinese movie, "2046"... I haven't seen it but it's supposed to be good, or so I've heard.
I'm not familiar with Chinese/Italian mix, but even so, that meant you are not pure Italian/European/whatever, ya know... Efficiently making you a mutt. I don't care if people say "human is one all same" anyways, I always find that to be silly because of deep cultural differences for every ethnic group.
On a second thought- since Reba has been here for long time, me thinks, are you hearing?
Efficiently making you a mutt.
Man, you really ought to lay off the sauce or lay down your pen for a while.
Sorry. I'll back off. I know it's bad excuse to use alcoholicism.
I think I'll sleep. Good night, pratele a dekuji vam vsem
Okay, I know I've brought up the 'bored/boring' thread. I don't mean to deconstruct ASL further.
Before we go on to the thank you part in ASL (it is the same in Czech sign language), I wanted to explain about boring.
I thought about bored/boring in the first place because of the equivalent Czech sign. It is similar to 'thank-you' sign in ASL. Instead of full motion of hand outwards from chin (or lips/near-lips), you basically patted on the chin. That is 'boring' sign in Czech.
I don't want to joke about Czechs because of its cultural affiliations between 'boring' and 'thank you', which I came quickly to understand why.
Anyways.
What is the origin of thank you?
Is it just a sexual deviant sign meant to connect to deaf people by perverts? Kiss/kiss goodbye/and so on? Or maybe it might be attractive to hearing people into learning sign language?
Just a thought. *drinking wine*
I know that French is a romance language by origin, so its introduction to French sign language is solidified through ASL and Czech and perhaps other later sign languages that adopted 'thank you' sign.
But, I have to criticize this a little, because the french word 'Merci' doesn't show this trend. So how did this sign come to exist?
Look at the sign for "good" compare that to "thank you".
It doesn't take a genius or anybody with any smarts at all to see the relationship between the signs.
"Thank you" is an expression of gratitude directed at a person or persons for doing something good. The sign for good and the one for thank you are very close...
Jesus, not everything or anything is literal.
You just either understand language or you memorize it.
I feel like i'm the only one here who feel mocked by the 'good' sign... especially because here in Czech sign language, 'good' sign looks like something of what you call someone 'ASSHOLE'. No joke, seriously... You know, the one with 'f' handshape, and flash it outwards from chest. That is how you say 'good' sign here...
I'm sure you realize that ASL is not a universal sign language. Thus, any similarities between different but unrelated sign languages are likely just coincendiences.
The Hungarian word for "kiss" is puszi (pronounced "pussy").
The above is just as random as your comment about Czech sign. You asked about ASL, you got answers about ASL.
Would you really expect Deaf people from countries far apart would have the same signs? Then why would you think it is weird that the ASL sign for "thank you" is similar to the Czech sign for a-hole?
There are only a finite number of motions human hands can make and a finite set of sound combinations. It isn't strange or weird or even special that one sign in one language (or one word) looks like (sounds like) a completely different sign in an unrelated language.