Adan R. Penilla II PhD
American Sign Language For Dummies
American Sign Language For Dummies®
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016953540
ISBN 978-1-119-28607-3 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-28609-7 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-28610-3 (ebk)
Introduction
American Sign Language is one of those fascinating forms of communication. As you walk through a grocery store, a restaurant, or a park, you might see some people moving their hands in the air as they look at each other. We know that they are communicating because they are responding to each other with gestures and facial expressions. There is meaning to the movement. How often have you thought that you would love to know how to do that? Well here is your chance.
About This Book
American Sign Language For Dummies is designed to give you a general understanding of how to communicate in American Sign Language, as well as a general understanding of Deaf culture and Deaf history. As you’ll soon see, the language and the culture go hand in hand and can’t be separated, and an understanding of both makes you a better signer. As you go through this book, you will see that ASL has rules about how to shape the hands, how the hands move, and how to put signs in order.
To clarify, this book focuses solely on what’s known as American Sign Language (ASL) because it’s pretty much the only form of communication for the Deaf community in the United States.
This book is categorized according to subject. You can use each chapter as a building block for the next chapter or you can skip around wherever you please. Just find a subject that interests you and dig in, remembering that the most important thing is to have fun while you’re figuring out this stuff. It never hurts to have a study buddy. Having a friend to watch you sign, bounce off your questions, and applaud your progress may be just the thing. And if you like to fly solo, that’s ok too. Whichever way you go, the construct of the book is simple enough to follow.
After you understand a concept, we strongly recommend that you practice with those who are already proficient. Conversing with Deaf people is highly recommended as they are the experts. Doing so helps reinforce the knowledge you obtain from this book and allows others to help you hone your skills. If others understand you, you’re probably on the right track. And if you don’t understand something, don’t despair. People all over the world learn how to sign. You'll get there with practice.
Here are some conventions we use to help you navigate this book:
❯❯ We capitalize the word Sign when we use it as another name for American Sign Language. We don’t, however, capitalize it when we use it as a verb (to sign) or a noun (referring to a person – a signer – or to a specific sign).
❯❯ We always capitalize Deaf because it means culturally Deaf (whereas lowercase “deaf” simply means that someone has an audiological hearing loss and communicates in spoken English rather than ASL).
❯❯ Whenever we use Sign in lists, examples, and dialogues, we print it in ALL CAPS to show that it’s the closest equivalent to its English counterpart.
❯❯ When we introduce a new sign, we bold it in the text so that you know you’re about to learn a new sign.
❯❯ ASL doesn’t use punctuation, so we add hyphens to show slight pauses in Sign translations.
❯❯ The text (Sign and its English translation) always comes before the illustration.
❯❯ To save space, manual numbers and words that are fingerspelled don’t have illustrations. See Chapter 1 if you need help remembering how to sign a particular letter or number.
❯❯ A Q in a line of ASL indicates that you need to sign the manual question mark (flip to Chapter 6 for more on the manual question mark).
Don’t think of the translations of English sentences into ASL as word-for-word translations. In fact, many signs have no English equivalents. Throughout this book, you find English equivalents that are close in meaning to Sign but not exactly the same. Remember that ASL is a completely different language from English. Fortunately, many gestures that hearing people use are also used by Deaf people in ASL, so you already have a head start that you can build on.
Foolish Assumptions
We hate to assume anything about anyone, but when writing this book, we had to make a few foolish assumptions about you. Here they are (we hope we were right):
❯❯ You have little or no experience in this type of communication, but you’ll try anything once. Fair is fair.
❯❯ You don’t expect to become fluent in Sign after going through this book. You just want some basic vocabulary, and you want to see what particular signs look like by themselves and in simple sentences. There is nothing like intellectual curiosity.
❯❯ You aren’t interested in memorizing grammar rules; you just want to communicate. However, for you grammar gurus, Chapter 2 is written for you. There are rules and concepts sprinkled throughout the book.
❯❯ You want to know a few signs to be able to communicate with Deaf friends, family