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At one time, I used to not believe that it was a real language. When I said that, I didn't mean any disrespect towards it. I believed that it was both very useful and truly necessary. However, I just didn't think that it belonged on the same plane as languages like English or Russian or Arabic. The best way that I would have described it would be to call it a close analogy of languages.

This is one of those times that I was wrong. I eventually realised that it was a language in its own right. Still, coming to SIL and being around users of this language has given me a really great admiration for it.

I'm talking about sign language.

Technically, when I say sign language, I'm talking about sign languages. There are many different sign languages from many different places on the globe. While the United States and the United Kingdom use the same primary language (technically, English is two languages: a written one and a spoken one), their sign languages are completely different. In fact, American Sign Language has more in common with French Sign Language since they are both derived from a common source.

My first week here at SIL, I was slightly surprised about the number of deaf people studying here. When someone thinks about linguistics, we think about the written and spoken forms of the language. It doesn't really occur to the majority of us to think of the signed aspect of language.

At the all-SIL kickoff shindig, I met a women named Kelly Jo who had with her a message pad. However, instead of having the normal “From”, “Date” and “Call Back” fields, the entire was was in Sign Writing notation. I asked her if I could have a sheet of the pad to keep. Instead, she sent me an entire pad in the mail. Once I looked into how to duplicate the signs for myself based on the notation, I found that the language is somewhat intuitive.

It seems that whenever I eat lunch here, there is always opportunity to sit with someone who is deaf. The first week, I sat at a table with some signers at it. One was the daughter of a missionary from Japan who was translating the Bible into Japanese Sign Language. The woman knew virtually nothing of American Sign Language despite being an American. The other was a deaf woman named Nathalie from Sweden who used Swedish Sign Language and had only been learning American Sign Language for the past few weeks before coming to America. The two were still able to talk to each other and the MK was even able to translate for me. I was actually surprised that I was able to understand the deaf woman when she asked me what my name was. I was equally thrilled with myself for being able to answer her without the help of a translator with my meagre knowledge of sign language.

Another time, I sat at a table next to a deaf man named Bob. Some of the others and I were asking him what the signs were for several items that we had with us like tea, soda and water. We started up a conversation. I found out that he had studied in New Orleans before coming to SIL. I instantly had to tell him of my profound love of New Orleans. He then asked me what my favourite part of New Orleans was. I didn't even have to think about that one: jazz! As I watched the translator translate what I had just said, I noticed that she was spelling out jazz. In sign language, if the sign for a word doesn't exist or if it just isn't that common, it's usually spelled out in English. Now, my being a person who loves jazz more than live itself, I was shocked that there was no sign for jazz. I tried to ask what the sign for it was, but the response that I got back was that I was surprised that there was no sign for that. Finally, the translator just had to say, “Deaf people don't care about music.” I kind of had one of those moments where I had to utilise one of my favourite words: schmuck as in the phrase: “Well, don't I feel like a schmuck.” Still, that let me realise that signed languages are just as prone to being affected by culture. I heard it been said that some Inuit languages have six or seven words for snow, and it makes sense: the Inuit live in the Arctic region where snow is abundant. In another instance, Hawaiian has three words for lava. Generally, the birth place of the English language, England, lies in a temperate climate with very little volcanos. Naturally, we only have one word for snow and one word for lava… not counting the loan words that we stole from Hawaiian and Inuit. It makes since that since deaf culture doesn't include music, it was unnecessary to include signs for it.

With all of this, I'm reminded of my time as an employee at Noodles & Company. When I worked the register, I got the occasional deaf customer. I tried to be accommodating, but while my boss could communicate with enough ASL to cater to the customer, I was reduced to having the customer point to the item that they wanted on a menu. Sure, it worked, but there's just so much more that being able to communicate in sign language would have provided. At that time, I probably just thought of sign language as a means to communicate with people who couldn't hear or speak. Now, I have these desires to learn as much as I can about it. I don't identify myself as deaf despite being deaf in one ear, but I really don't identify with any of the cultures of the languages that I speak anyway.

Anyway, tomorrow, I'm starting Introduction to Sociolinguistics. It basically covers all of the aspects of language that don't involve talking, writing or signing. That's probably the aspect of language that I love the most.