Rude gestures

[vilakins]

I just got this in the weekly World Wide Words language newsletter I subscribe to.

RUDE GESTURES

As every deaf person knows, signing is not just a shorthand to aid comprehension, but a series of fully developed languages with their own grammars, dialects and slangs, and which evolve over time. In a development that echoes debate in the USA over the nature of some signs, it has been reported this week that Vee-TV, a programme for deaf people made by the British TV station Channel 4, has banned certain signs because they might be thought racist or homophobic. The Daily Telegraph said that: "The abandoned signs include 'Jewish', in which a hand mimes a hooked nose; the sign for 'gay', a flick of a limp wrist; and 'Chinese', in which the index fingertips pull the eyes into a slant. Another dropped sign is that for 'Indian', which is a finger pointing to an imaginary spot in the middle of a forehead." These signs have been replaced with others considered inoffensive. Some critics are said to feel that the ban is a form of discrimination against the culture of deaf people.

Any comments from the only expert on BSL I know--spacefall? I'd like to know what they've been replaced with.

Comments

[hafren.livejournal.com]

What puzzles me is that the sign for gay which has replaced the wrist-flick sounds worse...

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Johnathon Ross spoke about this on his show last night. He showed what he claimed were the 'new signs' but since his show is supposed to be comedy I'm not sure if they were entirely true if at all.

IIRC Chinese is now right index finger jabbing chest in a straight at about nipple height from right to left.

Gay was
Left hand horizontal with palm upward, right hand in fist format placed on the palm of left hand with thumb up (like the Roman sign for kill him) then wiggled around.

[spacefall.livejournal.com]

Nah, it's not that bad at all. I never use the sign 'gay' with a limp wrist because it's the equivalent of 'poof', and many consider it offensive. I sign gay as described below: a thumbs up sitting on the palm, tipped repeatedly from left to right. The PC sign for lesbian is the same, except the forefinger is extended. These are the signs I'd use in everyday conversation, and are acceptable to most people.

[spacefall.livejournal.com]

Sounds right. The PC signs are basically as follows:

Jewish: hands with open and slightly curved fingers, held like an open book with palms towards you, then sweeping up to form the shape of the menorah.

Gay: 'thumbs up' sitting on palm of opposite hand, tipped repeatedly from left to right.

Chinese: Index finger points to right side of chest then slides to the left, before finally moving a short way down the chest.

Indian: flattened hands or index fingers begin held apart at around eye level then come together like the sides of an inverted triangle. With the flattened hands version the palms end up pressed together.

or

Asian: one hand strokes in circles on the back of the other.

To be honest, I don't see this as much different from the kind of language censorship which goes on all across TV. Most hearing daytime TV presenters wouldn't refer to gay men as poofs, so I don't see why restricting the language on Vee-TV should be seen as particular discrimination. The race stuff is more borderline, but I can understand why they'd want to use language that's acceptable to a wide range of people.

Whether certain signs (eg 'chinese' with the index fingers by the eyes) are offensive is a matter of debate. As noted in 'the linguistics of British Sign Language', visually motivated signs are a natural part of the language, and often don't carry the offensive overtones that they would in English. I know people with sign names which translate as (big) shirt, pointy hair, etc. Deaf Chinese visitors to the UK reportedly said they had no problem with the traditional sign for chinese, and said that their own sign for european referred to the round eyes of many european people. Unlike 'poof' these aren't signs which have been use in a particularly insulting way -- it's just the etymology which is seen as non-PC. Luckily this isn't a problem for many country signs, as signers from various places have exchanged signs and often use a country's own sign for itself (eg USA.)

I suppose it's a matter of culture. Not all Deaf people are happy with the old signs, whereas some really hate the modern PC equivalents. I tend to sign the PC ones because that's how I was taught -- an attempt by my tutors to influence our use of language no doubt :-) As far as language goes, these PC words are already a part of BSL, and though some dislike them they're still valid. FWIW, Vee-TV is on at 12:00 in the afternoon on Saturday and is targeted at a, so it doesn't surprise me

PS: I saw this news report a few days ago and went around going 'ooh, Vee-TV is in the international news. Cool :-)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that! I like the new Jewish one and i suppose the palms-together version of the Indian one looks like the namaste greeting. What's the reasoning behind the others?

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Sorry about the deleted reponse--I was answering from my e-mail notifications before I saw them all.

Why does it seem worse though?

[spacefall.livejournal.com]

'Gay' is pretty non-iconic, and I don't know the language well enough to know the etymology. FWIW, it uses a 'good' handshape, and 'lesbian' uses the 'L' style handshape used in BSL signs for 'Liverpool' and also 'Lesbian' in some dialects. I'm just guessing though, and the above may well be 100% unrelated to the sign's origins. 'Bisexual' adds yet another finger. *cough* Um, to the handshape that is.

The sign for China supposedly has its roots in clothing, which some people dislike.. Asian? No idea. There are loads of possible origins, but they're lost in the mists of time. It's the same as some dialects' version of 'blue', which is almost certainly irrelevant. I think. :-D

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Ah, so there are dialects! Greg did wonder if there were regional variations. Ay-oop lad, northern BSL!

And I think the gay, lesbian and bisexual ones make a very logical group.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

It's the same as some dialects' version of 'blue', which is almost certainly irrelevant. I think. :-D

Possibly not in Russian, where "blue" is code for "gay"....

I hope the sign my brother-in-law taught me for Prince Charles (two enormous ears) has not gone! Surely you're allowed to be offensive to him.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

In German, 'schwuel', the word for humid or stifling means 'gay'. I have no idea why.

[spacefall.livejournal.com]

Oh the sign's still very much in use. :-) Don't think you'd get away with it on channel four lunchtime though!

[spacefall.livejournal.com]

British Deaf Association responds positively to Channel 4's decision. (http://www.britishdeafassociation.org.uk/news/latest.php?id=136)

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

I've just been to look at World Wide Words, liked what I read and subscribed (like I need another reason to sit in front of the computer!). Thank you for the mention of it.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that.

BSL was only recognised as a language a year ago? I'm stunned!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

If you like language sites, The Word Detective (http://www.word-detective.com) is also a favourite, especially his archive (http://www.word-detective.com/backidx.html).

[spacefall.livejournal.com]

Shocking isn't it? People campaigned year after year for recognition, but it only finally happened last year. I've noticed that NZ sign language has had the same problems with getting recognised. The last I heard of it was back in October, when the government was planning to recognise NZSL by the end of the year. Has that happened how?

Do you know any New Zealand sign language, btw? It shares linguistic roots with modern BSL, so I'd be interested to see some examples.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I don't know any; I don't know anyone who uses it. But I've been fascinated by the development of Nicaraguan SL in the last few years.

It must be hard for users of NZSL when there are so few who know it. Is it similar to Australian SL?

[spacefall.livejournal.com]

Auslan and NZSL are apparently extremely similar, since they're both descended from 19th century BSL. Many researchers now argue that all three are essentially dialects of the same language. I usually just refer to them as part of the same language family, but This abstract (http://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/BibWeb/LiDat.acgi?ID=59381) from an article last year suggests that "there are varieties of BSL that differ more from each other than either does with at least one variety of Auslan." This online resource (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/DeafStudiesTeaching/bslsoc/Sessions/s2.htm) at the Centre for Deaf studies here in Bristol also refers to the percentage similarity of the three languages, though it notes that NZSL and Auslan are more closely related to one another than to BSL. Must be good for holidays: if I step over into France, or any other part of Europe, the sign languages are completely different. Same goes for American Sign Language which is very different from BSL, and shows the influence of old French sign language on its vocabulary.

The emergence of Nicaraguan SL is really interesting. It's been amazing to see how rapidly humans can develop language, and supports theories about the development of SL in other countries. BSL and LSF(French) are far too old for their emergence to be studied -- I think it wasn't until the 17th century that BSL signs began to be recorded, and even then people were using the same signs as are in use today*.

The events in Nicaragua also underline the importance of deaf schools to many Deaf cultures. In the UK, deaf schools are being closed, and deaf children have no legal right to education in sign language. Contrastingly, the Finnish government ruled that all deaf children and native signers (deaf or hearing) have a right to be educated in their first language. Many Finnish deaf children are multi-lingual in spoken and signed languages, which rather squashes the argument that letting kids sign will harm their spoken language development. *thwaps anti-sign folk hard with a ruler*

* from the limited vocabulary available for study, in any case. Unfortunately there was no full BSL dictionary in the 18th century. ;-)