Languages

Not too many years ago language was defined as "a spoken or written means of communication." Back then American Sign Language wasn't considered a real language since it was neither spoken nor written, so very few people who weren't Deaf or related to someone who was knew ASL.

Now that lots of people can study that language in school life is easier for Deaf people.

And even animals have languages. I read a fascinating book by Stanley Coren called How To Speeak Dog about dog communication.

We once had a Deaf Dalmation who learned to understand over 300 ASL signs (mostly names of people or animals, places, and foods) and all her signs are in that book. I have a story about her in a Chicken Soup For The Soul Book, I Can't Believe My Dog Did That.

I also once met and had a very short conversation with Koko, the gorilla who learned Sign Language.

But lots of other creatures have languages. The birds and the bees are only a few of them.

Communication is essential to all of us.

Chirology

Since I've always been interested in Historical Linguistics for this year I got Jeff Kacirk's Forgotten English as a daily calendar. There are six pages every week and each one lists an antique word that is no longer used. Last week one of the words was chirology. It means "The art of conversing with the hands and fingers."

My husband used to be a Sign Language interpreter, I worked at California School for the Deaf for many years, and we raised three Deaf foster children, so I'm obviously interested in conversing with the hands and fingers.

The quotation describing that word is from the late 1800s. At that time, deaf children were forbidden to use Sign Language to communicate in the schools. People believed that would encourage them to speak and read lips. Since most deaf children had lost their hearing due to high fevers and had already been exposed to spoken language, the "Oral Method" might have worked with some of them. Today most of those illnesses are prevented by inoculations or treated with antibiotics. Most childhood deafness is either hereditary, or caused by prenatal damage, sometimes from drug use.

And all culturally Deaf people resent the oral method, which is not used anymore.

And, in the past, the science of Linguistics defined language as written or spoken communication, so Sign Language wasn't considered a language. But that has changed, and today lots of schools and colleges teach it.  Lots of people who aren't from Deaf families know at least some Sign Language.

Even though almost nobody would use that antique word to describe it, chirology is accepted and available.

Languages

I've always been interested in languages. Maybe that's partly because when I was five years old my family moved from the East Coast to California and I was surprised by the difference in dialects.

As a kid I intended to learn all the languages in the world but, for some strange reason, that didn't happen. However I did take Latin and German in High School and French in college because English is related to those three languages.

I've forgotten most of the Latin, but using English words of Latin derivation has helped me communicate with people who speak Spanish.

A family from Germany with little kids moved in next door to us the week I began studying German. I actually used that language, so I remember it better than the other ones I took in school.

My French professor was from Quebec. At that time people in Canada were trying to get French accepted as an official language, so that's probably why she told us over and over again that French was the best language in the world and much better than English. I knew no language was better than  others, so I pretty much flushed French out of my brain after passing the tests in her class.

As an adult I learned American Sign Language and became fluent in that one because I've actually used it to communicate with Deaf people for many years.

And I've even learned some dog language from a deaf dalmatian we once had. I wrote about that dog in a story published in the Chicken Soup for the Soul book, I Can't Believe My Dog Did That.

I still wish I could learn every language in the world, but don't have the time or energy to study even one more. Oh, well, I guess I know enough to get by.

Baby Signs

Earlier this week I blogged about sign language and Deaf children. Today I want to follow up with a post about using American Sign Language (ASL) with hearing kids.

When my daughter was born we had three Deaf foster kids and signed all the time in our home. She started making up her own signs when she was about five months old and soon learned to use real ones. Once she realized she could get what she wanted by communicating her needs and wishes she was motivated to learn to talk as well, and by the time she was a year old she had a vocabulary of about 30 words and signs. By 18 months she could communicate - and understand - just about anything. And being bi-lingual made it easy for her to learn a third language when she was older.

Since it's easier for babies to control the muscles in their hands than the ones in their mouths they can learn to sign sooner than they can learn to speak.

BUT...

The "Baby Signs" books, videos, etc. are often not real ASL and many Deaf people find them insulting.

Nobody would make up sounds and call them "Baby Spanish" or "Baby German." Parents might copy their own child's baby talk or simplify the pronunciation of certain words, but they would also use the real vocabulary and pronunciation of their own language in the presence of the baby. And parents seldom try to teach their little ones to use the same baby talk as other people's kids.

Anyone who wants to use ASL with a baby can find the real signs in several locations. One online resource showing specific signs in a video dictionary is ASL Pro .

Hurt Go Happy

You might think Hurt Go Happy is an odd title for a book, but if you're familiar with American Sign Language it might not seem so strange.

I saw this book, by Ginny Rorby, in a catalog. It's about a Deaf girl who meets an old man raising a baby chimpanzee and teaching it Sign Language. Since I've had lots of experience with Deaf people and once met Koko, the famous gorilla who learned how to sign, I couldn't resist buying the book.

The girl in the story has been forbidden to learn Sign Language by her mother, but starts learning it from the old man and becomes friends with Sukari, the Chimpanzee. But when the old man dies, Sukari is shipped off to a horrible research facility where she and many other animals are treated cruelly.

Is there any way a young girl who can't hear can find a way to save the animal she loves?

Some of the realistic descriptions of the research facility are disturbing but I recommend this book anyway because it's exciting, well written, and should motivate lots of readers to care about animals and understand that people who can't hear are not very different from themselves.

Baby Language Learning

I just saw an article in Science Daily about a research study at the University of Delaware saying children begin learning language as early as ten months old.

They're crazy! Kids start learning language much earlier than that.

When my daughter was born we had deaf foster kids and used Total Communication. That's signing and talking at the same time and was encouraged by the school our foster kids attended.

Our daughter began making up her own signs at about five months,. When she wanted her diaper changed she'd hold her feet up in the air and when she wanted to nurse she'd pull my shirt up. A week or so later she began lifting her own shirt or skirt to signify that she wanted to nurse. She used her first legitimate sign at about seven months, and started using spoken words soon after that. By the time she was a year old she had a vocabulary of 30 words and signs, but refused to use a word for something she knew the sign for and vice versa.

You may think she was unusually advanced, but babies born into deaf families often start using legitimate signs at about four months. Our daughter's learning was probably delayed because she was learning two languages at the same time.

Many people are using sign language with their babies now, but if they don't use it all the time to communicate with each other as well as with the baby it won't have the same effect. (And if you want to teach your baby Sign language please use real ASL, not made up "Baby Signs." You wouldn't use a bunch of nonsense syllables and call them "Baby Chinese" or "Baby Spanish.")

If you want to read about the study you can see it at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060322141610.htm but don't believe everything you read just because scientists say it's true.

Great Show!

The best live performance I ever saw in my life (IMHO) was "Big River." It's a musical version of "Huckleberry Finn" and the 2004 performance I attended in San Francisco was done in both English and American Sign Language. There were a lot of deaf people in the audience and a lot of hearing people, but only a few of us were fluent in both languages. For us it was an incredible opportunity to experience the show - which was great in either language - on both levels. And I couldn't help noticing the parallels between the racial prejudice experienced by Jim and the prejudice deaf people and those with disabilities often experience today. I wish I could see Big River performed like that again.

Silent Words

Long ago I started to learn American Sign Language from an interpreter who is now my husband. Besides working at the California School for the Deaf for many years, I served as a church Sign Language interpreter, raised three Deaf foster sons, and have taught American Sign Language to lots of people. Our daughter started learning it when she was born.

My husband and I even taught sign language to our first dogs, who were deaf dalmatians. One of them, Brenda, became able to understand about 350 signs (mostly names of individuals and foods) and taught us to understand about 30 animal signs. Brenda was a brilliant dog and able to understand human language about as well as some two year old people do.