Monday, January 19, 2009

Sign Language






A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns likes manual communication, body language and lip patterns to convey meaning. Simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body and facial expressions to express fluidly a speaker's thoughts. Sign languages commonly develop in deaf communities, which can include interpreters and friends and families of deaf people as well as people who is deaf or hard of hearing themselves. Wherever communities of deaf people exist, sign languages develop.

In fact, their complex spatial grammars are markedly different from the grammars of spoken languages. Hundreds of sign languages are in use around the world and are at the cores of local deaf cultures. Some sign languages have obtained form of legal recognition, while others have no status at all.

In addation to sign languages, various signed codes of spoken languages have been developed such as Signed English and Warlpiri Sign Language. These aren't to be confused with languages, oral or signed. A signed code of an oral language is simply a signed mode of the language it carries, just as a writing system in a written mode.Signed codes of oral languages can be useful for learning oral languages or for expressing and discussing literal quotations from those languages, but they are generally too awkward and unwieldy for normal discourse. For example, a teacher and deaf student of English in the United States might use Signed English to cite examples of English usage, but the discussion of those examples would be in American Sign Language.

Actually most people use Hello and Goodbye signs even if they don’t know any sign language without even realising it. That is because the signs for hello and goodbye are waves. Hello is a wave from right to left while goodbye is a wave with the hand folding up and down. And of course, these signs are recognised by people who do not know sign language as well, making the very basic introductions between people everywhere very simple regardless of their language abilities. Hence, I strongly believe that sign language isn't a difficult way to learn and we'll figure it out how interesting and amazing it is.