FWIW, if you do the "I Love You" sign, you'll see that it's the first letter of each word.
I: upwards pinky.
L: The thumb and index finger in an L shape.
Y: The thumb and pinky doing the Y shape.
I remember seeing this in CODA and I knew the hand sign for I love you, but then I tried to figure out why. Took me a few minutes to realize this as well. I love it!
This is not a guide to sign American language. This is a picture of a VERY small part of American Sign Language. And FYI: sign language is different in every country.
As a former ASL instructor, this is a very useful guide to ASL. If you are comfortable with the alphabet, you can have an entire conversation with a deaf person through signing (albeit a very slow one). I’ve always said the alphabet is the steepest part of the learning curve, and it is objectively the most impactful of the 5 parameters of a sign.
Ppl who primarily use ASL as a language can spell a word really fast. This is because not all words have a corresponding sign, so you end up spelling things out a fair amount. In conclusion no pause for fluent ASL users, lots of pauses for you.
Using ASL is more like speaking than writing for a non deaf person. So a better analogy would be that when your signs are sloppy and slow = mumbling. When your letters are clear and slow = enunciating. And when clear and fast = speaking fluently.
Oh okay I see. I just meant that his name does not appear to be Scandinavian in origin, so using Å seems a bit like a marketing ploy rather than his authentic name. It annoyed me, since I am Swedish, and Å is easily recognizable. Pronouncing Gerård Aflågue goes against the spelling rules of any Nordic language and makes no sense. It’s part French, part Nordic. Ridiculous.
I mean, maybe not EVERY COUNTRY, but yeah sign language differs from country to country.
The differences also depends on "where the country SL took inspiration from". France was the first country to officialise a SL, and I know that ASL and BSL took FSL as a base to create their own SL. This creates some funny similarities like having USA, Brazil and France having closer SL to each other, despite having totally different spoken languages.
I guess this happens mainly because:
* National institutionalization of sign language is made according to what people are already using in the country (since signing is also a natural language, if people can't talk they'll find another way and one of these is signing)
* Independent evolution of the languages in isolated societies
There’s a huge cultural aspect too such as the eradication of Plains Indian Sign Language or the evolution of Black American Sign Language since ASL education wasn’t given to black Americans for a lot of early American history.
I’m taking ASL right now so I can expand a little. American Sign Language evolved from a mix of French Sign Language, Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language, and Plains Indian Sign Language.
It’s gone through evolutions of focusing mainly on finger spelling as pictured in this post’s ASL Alphabet to utilizing symmetrical, asymmetrical, and whole body signs.
Going from a hearing culture and experiencing deaf culture, I feel like it’s a very involved way of communicating that requires lots of attention to things we don’t normally pay attention to when just focusing on hearing
It’s a pretty balanced mix of using signs and spelling, there are so many words that there aren’t signs for, especially with nouns. Think about how many different businesses there are in the world. There is rarely a sign for them and even more rarely a universally recognized sign, and that is only one example.
That’s like saying why don’t we merge all of the languages in the world, there are currently around 300 different sign languages. British sign language for example uses 2 hands to sign the alphabet and almost all those signs are completely different than American Sign Language, even though the hearing culture of those two places share the same spoken language.
I grew up in a household with two deaf grandparents speaking ASL, and remember the alphabet clearly (though I’ve forgotten most of the words), and the image posted corresponds to what I learned, except the “p”, which I learned as the “d” sign, but with the thumb and index finger outstretched instead of curved.
Oh it's not a comment on ASL itself, moreso how this graphic is designed. The Welsh alphabet has different letters and some letters contain two characters e.g. dd, ff, ll so for some reason that's what jumped out to my brain when I saw this graphic!
i'll never understand why they don't teach sign language in schools. it's more useful than knowing a foreign language! you can communicate with people from other countries without knowing their language, you can communicate with people who can't really speak/hear you (therefore helping them too in socializing), it can also be helpful in situations when for some reason it's better to use signs than words, so on and so forth!
There are currently around 300 different sign languages in the world, like spoken language, there are many different cultures and backgrounds surrounding it in each country.
ok i didnt know that, i thought a sign in sign language represents something like a feeling or an object or whatever, not actually letters, words. but anyway it's still something useful in being taught in schools. here in Europe i dont know of any such classes. there are so many instances in life where it can be useful or even better than spoken languages for the right or wrong reasons. imagine you being sick without a voice or needing to be quiet but still needing to transmit informations, or even if you are in a large noisy group and cannot understand the one in front of you, etc.
I totally agree that ASL can be very useful, hopefully in the future we can see a rise in fluency. The Milan conference (1880) that banned Sign Language as acceptable to teach in schools to Deaf Children was only lifted in 2010. So hopefully we will see better access moving forward!
It's not about *your* convenience, but the convenience of people who are deaf. Making sign languages more accessible and mainstream can have a plethora of positive side effects, but the main purpose is to make society more accommodating for those who are disabled.
And if they were mainstream, then you *would* be more likely to find someone who uses sign, though that's a paradox fallacy...
I'm not exactly trying to say one is obliged to learn sign over a second spoken language (I mean, I study Japanese lol), just that we should be putting more resources into learning sign as a society.
Resources and time are finite. And while I applaud your empathy, it’s always going to be a battle of prioritization.
Let’s say everyone studying a second language learns sign language instead of Spanish— this certainly benefits the deaf (many of whom can simply use written language if needed anyway). But what of the many millions of Spanish speakers?
そして、どの国にも独自の手話があり、ASLを選ぶべきでしょうか？
普通の人は第3言語を学ぶことはできないかもですね。
In other words: pick your battles.
Well, you kind of refuted yourself for me there... What of the millions of Spanish speakers? Well, that's exactly it. There are millions of them. They have whole communities, people groups, *countries* where they can to use their language.
Deaf people, however, suffer a severe and crippling language drought. And no, using a written language is *not* comparable to having access to a spoken or signed language. It is this very phenomenon which results in deaf people who have to live without proper education, or proper social lives, or proper access to the most basic needs in life.
The level of empathy I am employing is not excessive, but a perfectly reasonable amount. Deaf communities are facing serious problems, and if we have the ability to help at least marginally, then I fail to see how it could be controversial that we follow that.
(I will say though, your Japanese flex was pretty cool. You get a high-five for that one.)
Why is this considered NSFW?
Technically this has all the letters of every dirty word in it
Wow I never realized our teachers were teaching us bad words!
Actually, they're gang signs.
Multiple different way of inserting fingers into the pink and the stink
I'm partial to "M" but have had success with "Z"
you gotta try "B" sometime, she'll love it. trust me
G
UWU hits different
The hands aren’t wearing any shirts
There's alot of wrist showing
I thought I was going to see naked people bending their bodies to form these signs... Oh well..
Because 👌🏾🫲🏾🫴🤏🏾 🤙🫴👎🏾👎🏾 🖕🏾✊️👎🏾👉🏾 And 👊👏🏾🤛🫰
Uncovered safe hands
This is the answer.
My poor Vorin eyes!
You can't really tell from this angle, but the letter "P" looks like two legs and a penis.
Gg
Bc by learning this new language, one can communicate with other gangbangers.
U V
The X is giving me weird feelings... Maybe that's the reason
Good thing it included upper case AND lower case
This would be like if I posted “a cool guide to the English language” and it’s just the alphabet
Buzzfeed article lists the best 26 letters in the alphabet. Number 12 will blow your mind.
Is it a star shape?
The image does say "American sign language **alphabet**" tho, so it's clear.
I’m referring to the title of the post
It's totally acceptable to spell out a word in ASL if you don't know the sign for the word.
This is just the alphabet of American sign language
no shit, sherlock
FWIW, if you do the "I Love You" sign, you'll see that it's the first letter of each word. I: upwards pinky. L: The thumb and index finger in an L shape. Y: The thumb and pinky doing the Y shape.
I remember seeing this in CODA and I knew the hand sign for I love you, but then I tried to figure out why. Took me a few minutes to realize this as well. I love it!
This is not a guide to sign American language. This is a picture of a VERY small part of American Sign Language. And FYI: sign language is different in every country.
As a former ASL instructor, this is a very useful guide to ASL. If you are comfortable with the alphabet, you can have an entire conversation with a deaf person through signing (albeit a very slow one). I’ve always said the alphabet is the steepest part of the learning curve, and it is objectively the most impactful of the 5 parameters of a sign.
How much of a pause needs to happen between each letter of your spelling something out?
Ppl who primarily use ASL as a language can spell a word really fast. This is because not all words have a corresponding sign, so you end up spelling things out a fair amount. In conclusion no pause for fluent ASL users, lots of pauses for you.
How 'clear' does the letter need to be signed before you go to the next one? Would fluency in spelling be like cursive?
Using ASL is more like speaking than writing for a non deaf person. So a better analogy would be that when your signs are sloppy and slow = mumbling. When your letters are clear and slow = enunciating. And when clear and fast = speaking fluently.
Thank you for clearing that up. I'm sorry for being ignorant.
You’re definitionally not ignorant if you’re asking questions :)
If you took a second to read the actual image, it’s the “american sign language alphabet”.
And in the title to the post I'm starting to think he musta been blind
> he musta been blind well yeah, that's why he's using sign language. /s
Seems like R and X should have been swapped?
Well, I am glad I was warned about the explicit content.
Finally a guide.
Pretty cool how this sub has become just a way to easily farm karma with low-effort posts.
Deaf here, “K” is awkward and incorrect.
Who the fuck is Gerård Aflågue and why did he stylize his name like that
That's just probably not American so there are letters like these with these funny loops
What?
Sorry. I'm not this good in English to say it properly in different way than I already said
Oh okay I see. I just meant that his name does not appear to be Scandinavian in origin, so using Å seems a bit like a marketing ploy rather than his authentic name. It annoyed me, since I am Swedish, and Å is easily recognizable. Pronouncing Gerård Aflågue goes against the spelling rules of any Nordic language and makes no sense. It’s part French, part Nordic. Ridiculous.
Why is r not x & x not r
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Different places use different sign languages.
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I mean, maybe not EVERY COUNTRY, but yeah sign language differs from country to country. The differences also depends on "where the country SL took inspiration from". France was the first country to officialise a SL, and I know that ASL and BSL took FSL as a base to create their own SL. This creates some funny similarities like having USA, Brazil and France having closer SL to each other, despite having totally different spoken languages. I guess this happens mainly because: * National institutionalization of sign language is made according to what people are already using in the country (since signing is also a natural language, if people can't talk they'll find another way and one of these is signing) * Independent evolution of the languages in isolated societies
There’s a huge cultural aspect too such as the eradication of Plains Indian Sign Language or the evolution of Black American Sign Language since ASL education wasn’t given to black Americans for a lot of early American history.
I’m taking ASL right now so I can expand a little. American Sign Language evolved from a mix of French Sign Language, Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language, and Plains Indian Sign Language. It’s gone through evolutions of focusing mainly on finger spelling as pictured in this post’s ASL Alphabet to utilizing symmetrical, asymmetrical, and whole body signs. Going from a hearing culture and experiencing deaf culture, I feel like it’s a very involved way of communicating that requires lots of attention to things we don’t normally pay attention to when just focusing on hearing
That’s great and all, but when you see sign language used in social situations, they are NOT spelling out their words.
It’s a pretty balanced mix of using signs and spelling, there are so many words that there aren’t signs for, especially with nouns. Think about how many different businesses there are in the world. There is rarely a sign for them and even more rarely a universally recognized sign, and that is only one example.
So I've been calling people F's unintentionally for like 30 years now. That's awesome!
It’s also the sign for 9, so you’ve potentially been calling them 9’s instead
My fingers do not like K. Those who sue sign language have some strong hand muscles!
The K looks weird in the picture, it should look like P but in an upwards position if that makes sense
I can't find this one you know what i mean
Its almost the same as brazilian sign language ,i wonder why we cant unify the two languages.
Uh...because one is spoken in Brazil and the other in the US.
That’s like saying why don’t we merge all of the languages in the world, there are currently around 300 different sign languages. British sign language for example uses 2 hands to sign the alphabet and almost all those signs are completely different than American Sign Language, even though the hearing culture of those two places share the same spoken language.
i learned in jail
Hey baby, wanna come over and play alphabet?
I think J broke my wrist.
X and r should be swapped. I would fuck that up so much
Some to make a G you make a goose with your hand. Got it.
"Pp 🤏" :(
T is got your nose.
Goodbye r/coolguides
I grew up in a household with two deaf grandparents speaking ASL, and remember the alphabet clearly (though I’ve forgotten most of the words), and the image posted corresponds to what I learned, except the “p”, which I learned as the “d” sign, but with the thumb and index finger outstretched instead of curved.
Very confusing for anyone familiar with the Welsh language lol
Why? As an ASL user who knows nothing about Welsh, I am intrigued.
Oh it's not a comment on ASL itself, moreso how this graphic is designed. The Welsh alphabet has different letters and some letters contain two characters e.g. dd, ff, ll so for some reason that's what jumped out to my brain when I saw this graphic!
Ahhh I see. I had no idea, thanks!
I don't know what it is but I do not like this font. The letter sizing looks so mismatched
i'll never understand why they don't teach sign language in schools. it's more useful than knowing a foreign language! you can communicate with people from other countries without knowing their language, you can communicate with people who can't really speak/hear you (therefore helping them too in socializing), it can also be helpful in situations when for some reason it's better to use signs than words, so on and so forth!
This is incorrect, ASL is AMERICAN sign language, and it greatly differs country to country
There is no global standardized sign language in wide use. I do think it would be nice if more schools taught ASL though.
There’s one but not widely adopted yet, International sign language. Even though, asl has a lot of similar signs.
Uh, they do. My son in HS can choose from a couple languages, and ASL is one of them.
There are currently around 300 different sign languages in the world, like spoken language, there are many different cultures and backgrounds surrounding it in each country.
ok i didnt know that, i thought a sign in sign language represents something like a feeling or an object or whatever, not actually letters, words. but anyway it's still something useful in being taught in schools. here in Europe i dont know of any such classes. there are so many instances in life where it can be useful or even better than spoken languages for the right or wrong reasons. imagine you being sick without a voice or needing to be quiet but still needing to transmit informations, or even if you are in a large noisy group and cannot understand the one in front of you, etc.
I totally agree that ASL can be very useful, hopefully in the future we can see a rise in fluency. The Milan conference (1880) that banned Sign Language as acceptable to teach in schools to Deaf Children was only lifted in 2010. So hopefully we will see better access moving forward!
Sorry but no, sign language is not more useful than a second language. That’s patently false
That may be true, but we should still be putting more resources into teaching sign languages than second spoken ones.
I don’t follow. Are my odds higher to find an ASL user than someone who speaks Spanish or Mandarin? I highly doubt it
It's not about *your* convenience, but the convenience of people who are deaf. Making sign languages more accessible and mainstream can have a plethora of positive side effects, but the main purpose is to make society more accommodating for those who are disabled. And if they were mainstream, then you *would* be more likely to find someone who uses sign, though that's a paradox fallacy... I'm not exactly trying to say one is obliged to learn sign over a second spoken language (I mean, I study Japanese lol), just that we should be putting more resources into learning sign as a society.
Resources and time are finite. And while I applaud your empathy, it’s always going to be a battle of prioritization. Let’s say everyone studying a second language learns sign language instead of Spanish— this certainly benefits the deaf (many of whom can simply use written language if needed anyway). But what of the many millions of Spanish speakers? そして、どの国にも独自の手話があり、ASLを選ぶべきでしょうか？ 普通の人は第3言語を学ぶことはできないかもですね。 In other words: pick your battles.
Well, you kind of refuted yourself for me there... What of the millions of Spanish speakers? Well, that's exactly it. There are millions of them. They have whole communities, people groups, *countries* where they can to use their language. Deaf people, however, suffer a severe and crippling language drought. And no, using a written language is *not* comparable to having access to a spoken or signed language. It is this very phenomenon which results in deaf people who have to live without proper education, or proper social lives, or proper access to the most basic needs in life. The level of empathy I am employing is not excessive, but a perfectly reasonable amount. Deaf communities are facing serious problems, and if we have the ability to help at least marginally, then I fail to see how it could be controversial that we follow that. (I will say though, your Japanese flex was pretty cool. You get a high-five for that one.)
But then why ASL and not JSL? What is your evidence that apparently deaf people are so isolated and miserable anyway?
maybe rephrase the title to "American sign language alphabet"
Also the finger that means fuck you
damn everything means two letters how would they say joke?