BSL notes

[kaberett]

Grammar.

• 4 types of placement in syntactic space: topographical (literal), abstract (most common - e.g. choosing between two things, place them in space); hierarchical (top-down; indicates power/status; used to indicate e.g. family structures, or conversations with superiors/inferiors, via where sign/eyeline/etc are placed); numerical
  
• proforms and classifiers (placing things within space; types of thing; the evolution of the sign for "telephone"!)

Politics. Mostly about sign song: it's of necessity SSE rather than BSL, and ends up being incredibly unidiomatic (SSE of "cross the river" is CROSS [the generic object]-RIVER rather than RIVER-CROSS [the proform/topographic placement]. Not of any particular interest to d/Deaf culture, and sometimes seen as patronising/appropriative in addition to irrelevant; but can be a very useful practice tool for people learning BSL because it makes you sign faster (than you think you can), learn a lot of vocab, and helps cement vocab (in the same way that learning words to music is generally easier than learning words in isolation). We did also watch a brief video clip about the youngest child of two very-famous-in-UK-d/Deaf-culture people (at least one of whom is involved in Deafinitely Theatre IIRC), whose name is given on her birth certificate both as it would be written/spoken and in the notation used for transcribing signs.

Numbers
1-10 (one-handed until 10; 10 can be both hands, or a twist, or the US "slang" T)
11-12 (unusually, match spoken English in not being -teen signs)
13-19 (shake number)
20-90 (number then zero)
21..29 (tens by non-dom shoulder, units by dom)
ordinals don't have their own sign above ten; below ten, do an upward twist

Misc time/dates/etc
age? (when on nose; indicate who)
age (sign first digit down from nose)
dates (all by dom shoulder)
days of the week (letter twice; except Thursday Th, Saturday (rub back of non-dom hand with dom), Sunday (prayer))
weekend (W, fists together)
months of the year (JAN, FEB, [milk], 2xA, MAY, JUNE, JULY, AUG, SEPT, OCT, NOV, DEC)
week (non-dom arm + extended index finger as timeline)
-- last week/two weeks ago (index/two fingers against bicep from middle)
-- next week/two weeks in the future (index/two fingers beyond index, from middle)

Religious
Christmas (... not even going to try to describe this sorry look it up, self)
Jewish [religion] (menorah - doublecheck)
Jewish [people] (locks; ??something beard-ish down from chin; also the nose thing but that one is Not Used by younger people)
Christianity (cross on back of non-dom hand; for Bible, that followed by book)
Catholic (cross on forehead)
Buddhism - ~meditation hands~; earlobes
Hindu (bindi; also old sign for India; new sign is outlining country shape)
Sikh (turban -- palms out on forehead; start palms-facing-stomach)
atheist (don't believe in god)
agnostic (not sure if believe in god)
convert -- sign as "change" (two fists swap places, index/thumb touching) with from/to
angel vs butterly vs fairy

Misc
table (make flat surface)
book (open one)
pen (write on hand)
everything from Abba's I have a dream


Homework.

• sign along to Abba's I have a dream every other day or so
  
• pick a song to sign along to; work out as much of it as possible, and bring it along next time
  
• practise describing things on a table (record self to make sure using eyeline/getting consistent surface)
  
• practise describing a picture (ditto)

Comments

[cxcvi]

So, I learnt a little bit back at the tail end of 2012, but not really formally? May able help fill gaps, though? Except I'm learning as well from this. And also it's not a thing I feel I can use for me? But... complicated... *finds icon*

10 can be both hands, or a twist, or the US "slang" T
I think that what I learnt was the twist? but I can't remember the hand movement? hard to pick that sort of thing up. Am curious what the both hands sign is.

days of the week (letter ??how many times -- check
From what I remeber, it was two times... so MM, TT, WW, TH, FF. Saturday always felt weird to me? but Sunday was easier.