Re: Sign Language?

On Tue, Jan 14, 2003 at 03:18:07PM -0800, Sarah Marie Parker-Allen wrote:

> and structural signs]) or somewhat independent (like ASL) or even fully
> independent as its own separate language (like what ASL tries to be -- parts
> of it, I know, aren't easily translatable to ordinary English)?
I'm curious as to what you mean by "somewhat independent" and "ASL tries
to be"... ASL, having developed naturally as the native speech of the deaf
children in the deaf schools, doesn't *try* to be anything.  By "somewhat
independent" do you mean, for example, "uses initials from the English
alphabet to make up new words"?  Or do you mean something stronger?

In my experience, the entire structure and grammar of ASL is utterly alien
to English, and the whole thing is not easily translatable at all.  (Now,
this may just be sour grapes since I inexplicably was not able to learn it
when I tried - the little language computer in my brain apparently never
caught on to the fact that it was supposed to be hooked into this strange
pantomime I was learning...)

Amanda

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