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2010-07-26

Why sign language?

I find sign language fascinating.

  • It's a language unlike the any other languages I know.
  • It uses a different set of body parts to communicate.
  • Sign language linguistics is hard.
  • Sign language recognition is hard(er).

And it surprises me.

For the longest time, I thought sign language used only the hands and arms. Only when I started reading about it and interacting with the Deaf, did it become clear that it uses the whole body. The face and body posture is important in discourse. That's the exciting part, we (I) don't know how important it is, yet. Sign language linguistics is in its infancy when compared to spoken and written linguistics.

FSL also opened my eyes to the plight of the Deaf. The most valuable lesson I have learned is this:

The most important thing about sign language is the Deaf person using it.