I am hearing and autsisic and can go non-verbal at times. This makes it near impossible to communicate. This is not infrequent and can even be multiple times a day. On top of that I don't actually like talking all the time. I find it exhausting and frustrating, but that doesn't mean I don't want to communicate. I figured if me and my partner learned ASL, I would be able to communicate with him even when I am struggling to talk. On top of that I like trying to make the world more accessible and more hearing people knowing sign is a great start. I'm not sure if this is offensive or disrespectful. I would like to interact with the deaf community more, but don't know any deaf people personally, so was going to look for events on my city. But even so I'm not sure if learning to help myself is ok.

And did you learn it for a family member, friend, or significant other?

Why is that? It’s funny and ironic in my opinion and I never understood why. Do any of y’all have a shorthand for that word with your homies or do you guys always spell it out?

To me, it's extremely weird how asl is behind a paywall or hard to find the correct words vs any other language

Right now I'm trying to learn how to sign Silver Springs by Fleetwood (So I can sign and sing) and honestly, it's making me notice that asl is WAY harder to learn if you don't have money versus anything you can speak

If I wanted to learn Spanish, I could download one free app and be done with it, but asl?? I have 3, apps one website, Google, YouTube, and TikTok, and I'm still having issues, u also gotta worry people aren't signing right (Bc of people not using grammar) but with other languages? Maybe one person pronounces it wrong but other than that, you're set and to me it seems like theres an imbalance in resorces for siging vrs speaking when it should be just the same

Most apps I've had let u do some lessons for free or one a day but the rest? U gotta pay for all the lessons, (Which i understand but what of people who truely need asl cabt affrord it) one of my apps lets me do 1 - 2 lessons per day and that's insane to me I have Bloom, Inter Sign ASL, inter sign asl and have looked at others that sucked

But with anything else where u gotta speak all u really need is something like dou hell google translate is free but I seriously can't find ANYTHING that's working

Videos of what I'm trying to learn sometimes can be blurry, the person moves too much or too little so idk whats right, and if u wanna make a sentence, might as well look for 15 minutes I was looking for flashing and had to look for 5 minutes for the word alone

I've tried to learn Japanese and how much free resources you can get vs something one day can be put upon you by whatever that you can't over time learn can't be a thing I only find weird

Like I'm stuck on the start of the song and I can't find anything on how to say it fully right only the sparse words then u gotta think about how asl isnt like English grammar and you don't say the full thing

It's honestly weird to me and I can't tell if I can't find the right apps or if its truely this hard to learn asl without money

(EDIT mant comments have been saying things and I didnt mean my post to come off that way i ment it as it should have as much resources as learning a speaking language vrs asl bc thers so many free things for speaking vrs asl ALSO NOT FOR ME im syaing it shoukd be just as easy for people who need it please ANYONE tell me how to reword this i dont understand how it came off like that (Im trying to reword this rn)

My OC is mute and uses sign language to communicate. I’m currently learning sign language so that I can get a sense of it and hopefully portray him more accurately. I know that usually sign names are given to others by deaf people, but would it be appropriate to give my OC a sign name that they would canonically use, or for them to give others in their universe sign names?

Also, is sign names for places a thing and would I be able to create sign names for different places that he would use?

I’m actively becoming deaf and paralysed due to a nerve disease, and whilst I’m still somewhat hearing, I’m wanting to jump on the ball and learn asl now before it’s harder for me. I know basics as my mom is a teacher and has always used very basic asl (yes, no, thank you, etc) growing up. I am struggling with my hands due to the same disease so sometimes my hands lock up or are trembling a lot when I’m trying to say something in asl, and it’s making it hard for me to do so, so I would love some input from people who have been doing asl longer than me. Thanks!

New to ASL and wondering what this sign means. It was a circular hand motion toward the mouth, almost like how a non-ASL person might gesture “eat.” Any idea what sign this could’ve been?

Hi!! I’m currently taking an intro ASL class. The designated tutor for this class unfortunately is unavailable anymore. I wanted to know if anyone would be willing to help me practice :(?

I know Spanish & some Japanese. Just looking for someone to help me practice maybe for about an hour once a week if possible.

Hi r/deaf !

I’ve been helping to work on a project called Sign on Screen as a person with hearing loss, and wanted to spread the word of a resource we're developing. It's a global database of feature films, shorts, series, and documentaries that either:

• include sign language dialogue, or
• center on Deaf characters.

You can find it here: https://signonscreen.com/film-finder/

It currently has 1,544+ entries - which appears to be the majority of what exists worldwide. The database launched in June 2024, and we are continuing to work on it until our funding runs out (which sadly, is soon.).

Who it’s for:

• Deaf & hard of hearing viewers looking for representative content
• Academics and creatives needing data for projects
• Anyone curious about sign language on screen

We want this to be a community resource. If you know of a film/show we’ve missed - especially works in different sign languages (ASL, BSL, Auslan, etc.) - please let us know through the email on the website. I actively update the database, and we’d love to add your recommendations.

Two ways to access the data:

1. This website link
2. A public, read‑only Excel spreadsheet

If you are conducting research, community or industry work about sign language cinema, you are welcome to download our complete database for your own use. If you use the data in any publications, please credit Sign on Screen by citing us:

Gemma King, “Film Finder”, Sign on Screen, accessed [date], https://signonscreen.com//film-finder.

p.s If you happen to be based in Canberra, Australia, we are hosting a free film festival this Friday-Sunday. We'd love to see you there.

Student interpreter here, I want to know from the ASL community, particularly from ASL interpreters or anyone really, what you think is the book that people who want to become ASL interpreters should read? I'm not talking about textbooks like the "Signing Naturally" series, those I have, I am talk about a book either you have been recommended to read or a teacher might have required you to read for your classes that you think people who want to become interpreters should read. Maybe this book had good advice for future interpreters or maybe good insight on the language or the deaf community? It could be a general knowledge book or a book about something really specific related to ASL and interpreting or even a book about interpreting as a profession. I am looking for suggestions of books to read while I am in between classes. (Summer break).

Hi! I’m a first time parent looking for advice. I have a child who was born with CHARGE Syndrome. They were born without cochlear nerves. With that being said, ASL is my child’s first language. She’s been thriving using ASL.

We currently have a deaf mentor from FSDB who comes weekly to our house. My child is coming up to preschool age.

We’ve dreamed of her attending FSDB but we were just informed she can’t enroll due to her having a feeding tube (she would realistically only need 1 feed during school time).

But we are completely devastated. I dreamed of my child going to school with children like her and could relate to her. We’re in central Florida.

Does anyone know of any schools that have a deaf program and use ASL? I feel like we can’t find anyone in this area who strictly use ASL to communicate. They all “hear” in some capacity with assistive devices like hearing aids or cochlear implants.

Thanks so much in advance for the help!

Whether you are new to sign languages or a native signer who has signed your entire life - you probably haven't heard about sign language writing systems. Spoken languages around the world have writing systems so surely sign languages can too? Well, many have been tried and used in brief corners of the world but none have been widely adopted by Deaf communities.

I recommend these resources if you want to learn more about all of those attempts and their histories:

• Sign Language Dictionary - Writing History
• The Hunt for The Perfect Sign Language Writing System (© 2025 Zrajm)

But in this mini-series of posts I want to explain the different types there are so that you, intrepid future sign language writer, may better understand the options and pick which to learn or make.

Last post in this series I talked about Projectional Systems. This post I will talk about Parameter Alphabets.

Fair warning this one is LONG, indepth, and full of jargon. There is just so much to cover that to make it shorter would be to miss out important information. I want to show the entire breadth of sign language alphabets. I have tried my best to keep it easy enough to follow for non-linguists also 😄

• Part 1: Logographies (Reddit Post & Comments Section)
• Part 2: Pojectional Systems (Reddit Post & Comments Section)
• Part 3: Parameter Alphabets <= You are here

       

As this one is too long for reddit - I will post the introduction here (and if I can the first few systems) but I recommend checking out the blog for the full thing!

Alphabets, Syllabaries and Other Phonetic Writing

As I discussed in Part 1: Logographies, the Latin alphabet came from Heiroglyphs. The letter <A> used to be an ox or bull with horns. But how? Why?

Development of the letter A

Development of the entire Alphabet

Image Source: Evolution of the Alphabet Poster – UsefulCharts

Initially, it was that the hieroglyphs were used to mean "sounds like...". So the word for "ox" was " 'alp", so using the ox symbol meant "sounds like 'alp".

This got loaned from language to language, first becoming Proto-Sinaitic, then Phoenician then Greek then Latin. Through this copying the letters lost the associations they once had - so "A" became just a sound, and was no longer linked to "ox" at all.

It also branched out into many different alphabets along the way, such as Norse Runes, Hebrew and Arabic amongst many more. Latin itself was adopted by many languages across Europe and the world, and is the very same writing system that is used in English. Thus alphabets come in many forms.

But what is an alphabet?

The word "alphabet" is used in two ways. In a general sense it is used for any writing system which writes the sounds of a language. Another words for this are "phonetic writing systems". This applies to most languages, such as Spanish where each letter always represents a sound. English is weirder - because it's writing system is only semi-phonetic, and the spelling depends on the history of the word. However at its core the letters still represent sounds, even if not in a 1:1 way.

Not all sound-based writing is the same. There are; 

• True Alphabets - writes both consonants and vowels as separate letters, like Latin
• Syllabaries - writes whole syllables like "ka" as one letter, like Japanese.
• Abjad - writes only consonants, with no vowels or only optional vowels, like Arabic and Hebrew.
• Abugidas - writes consonants, then vowels are written as additional modifiers, like Devanagari (Hindi & Sanskrit).

All of the above are "alphabets", but not all are "true alphabets".

Alphabet, Syllabary & Abugida comparison

In Arabic the vowel marks are optional, they are not used the majority of the time.

Image Sources: 7.1 Writing Systems – Psychology of Language, A really good video on how to evolve a naturalistic tri-consonantal root system : r/conlangs**r/conlangs

Parameters - Sign Language Phonetics

This is the part many people get confused, because sign languages don't use sounds. How can they have "phonetics", "phon-" means sound?

Well the equivalent of phonetics in sign languages are parameters. We still call it "phonetics" by analogy, because it works a similar way, but it needs you to learn a few concepts.

While there is some debate about the finer details, the most common model is the HOLME model:

• H - Handshape - the shape the hand makes with the fingers.
• O - Orientation - the direction the hand (palm, fingers, etc) are pointing.
• L - Location - the place the sign is in space or on the body.
• M - Movement - the direction and way the hand moves.
• E - Non-Manual Features / NM Markers / NM Signals / NM Expressions (called E for "expression") - what the face and rest of the body does.

An example of the five parameters

A brief explanation of the 5 parameters, with Signwriting examples

A diagram of the 5 parameters

Image Sources: 5 Parameters of ASL "TRUE" v.s. "TELL", Pin by Leslie Grahn on Instructional Resources: American Sign Language | Instructional resources, American sign language, Language, Phonological parameters of sign language: articulation point (AP), hand... | Download Scientific Diagram

So based on this:

• A True Alphabet would be one where each parameter is noted as individual letters (to the best of the ability of the designer, with the knowledge available about sign language linguistics at the time).
• A Syllabary would be one where multiple parameters are grouped together into single symbols, especially if centred on the movement as that is often considered the syllabic core signs.
• An Abjad would be one where some parameters are written, whilst others remain unwritten (at least, most of the time). This applies specifically to HOLM. E is considered a separate case, which I will explain below*.
• An Abugida would be one where one parameter is the base, and other parameters modify that base.

*Notably I wouldn't consider lack of expression (NMFs) to be enough to consider a system an abjad. Expression is somewhat akin to emphasis, intonation or tone in spoken languages. All spoken languages use tone, intonation and emphasis in some way - some as part of their words, some as part of their grammar and some purely as personal affectation - but very few writing systems mark it. Those that do often employ very different strategies tailored to that specific language's needs. 

Similarly expressions are used differently in different sign languages. Some, such as ASL, only use expressions grammatically and as personal choice. Others such as BSL use mouthing to differentiate between signs (e.g. NEPHEW vs BATTERY). As such, so long as the writing system can differentiate minimal pairs (words with only one parameter difference) with HOLM (but no E), I would still consider it still a True Alphabet.

Importantly all of said systems are linear, rather than projectional. This means they are written in sequence and can be read as such, rather than location in 2D space impacting meaning. An example like Korean is still linear in this example because there is a correct order to write and read glyphs, it's not freeform or highly 2D.

You could consider SignWriting or ASLwrite forms of Alphabet or Syllabary or Abugida if you want, but projectional systems break the known categories so will be ignored.

Before continuing I need to talk about one last concept.

Featural vs Arbitrary, Iconic vs Symbolic

Most alphabets are arbitrary. That means that the shapes of letters have no relationship to the sounds they make. They make those specific sounds because of the history up to this point.

But then there are iconic and featural systems, which overlap a lot and people get them confused. Korean is the key example.

Korean letters corresponding to mouth shapes

Korean letters

Image Sources: Lessons from Hangeul – Fonts Knowledge - Google Fonts, Learn to write your name in Korean : 한글 The Korean Alphabet — Steemit

As you can see Korean letters resemble shapes of the mouth - making them iconic and similar letters share similar shapes, making it featural. People get these confused because Korean is both, but there are non-iconic featural writing systems, such as Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics. 

Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics Table

Image Source: Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics

These are featural because similar sounds share a similar letter, but NOT iconic because the shapes of the letters are ultimately (to my knowledge) symbolic (random).

While the words "arbitrary" and "symbolic" exist as contrasts to "featural" and "iconic", the rest of this post already uses enough jargon that from here on out I will only be using "non-featural" and "non-iconic".

Sign Language Alphabets & More

So, finally I can get to the alphabets. I think it would be best go go in order and show how one attempt affected the next! There are way too many different system to get into every single one, so I will be going over only those I consider notable.

In the case of arbitrary (non-featural) and symbolic (non-iconic) I will not note it because that is the global default.

Fair warning - this next section contains 12 different parameter alphabets because people often feel the need to make their own either in ignorance of, or because they can do better than, other attempts.

14, no 15 competing systems and growing

Image Source: xkcd: Standards

This can be annoying - as it feels as if perhaps it would have been better had we just picked one, stuck to it, and honed it over time. But on the flip-side - each is unique in some ways and something new can be learned from each of them, even the ones you dislike!

Mimographie

Featural Iconic Semi-Syllabary

(1825)

The second earliest form of sign language writing system (bar Handtalk Pictographs), this was made in the Institution Nationale des Sourds-Muets à Paris, the birthplace of Deaf Education. It was made by Roch-Ambroise Auguste Bébian, one of the first hearing teachers of the deaf to become fluent in French Sign Language (LSF) and a strong advocate of it.

Mimographie handshapes and locations

Mimographie movements

Mimographie examples

Image Soruce: Mimographie, ou essai d'ecriture mimique

Analysis of this script is made harder by the fact that the main document about it is written in French, much of it handwritten. Perhaps one day I would love to translate this into English and make a modern day font for the writing system!

Handshape and Orientation are combined into single symbols, which are rotations of one-another. Location and movement seem to be individual letters. Location seems to primarily be bodyparts. Expressions (NMFs) are also present as the exclamation-mark style characters.

I can't quite discern the whole of the order, but it appears to be Location, then Handshape with Orientation for both hands, then Movement, then Expression. Thus the basic order is L[HO]ME, but I am not sure if what the deeper nuances are, nor how strict this is.

Categorisation & Review

It is a good example of a featural and iconic script, where the letterforms are intended to resemble the shapes and orientations of the hands. In terms of status:

• H & O - these are merged into a single symbol.*️⃣ 
• L - present✅
• M - present✅
• E - present ✅
• Basic One-Hand Order: L[HO]ME
• Complex Two Hand Order: L[HO]¹[HO]²ME (uncertain)
• Syllabary
  • Featural
  • Iconic

I'd argue that Mimographie is a Semi-syllabary. That is to say some letters act like syllables, others like true alphabet letters. A true sign language syllabary would go further than this, perhaps combing L and M or similar.

Praise**:** This occupies a historic place, despite it being largely forgotten. I appreciate a good attempt, even if said attempt did not take off. It also likely represents the earliest phonological analysis of sign languages, which resulted in something very similar to the parameter analysis.

Criticism**:** The biggest issue I have with this system, and attempt overall, is that it relies so much on being able to read the French portions to get it. More diagrams and demonstrations would be good. It's hard to criticise without further information. As far as I can tell, it also seems to be lacking in handshape information.

[I will skip a few in this Reddit Post in order to get to the ones I consider most notable - a full account of all systems I have reviewed is available on my blog]

Stokoe Notation

Semi-Iconic Alphabet

(1960)

William Stokoe is a key figure in the history of sign languages. He was one of the first people to linguistically analyse ASL and used Stokoe Notation to do it!

The Stokoe system was initially made with a modified typewriter, as such most symbols are reused symbols that can be found on a typewriter, although some appear drawn.

Stokoe letters per parameter

Expressions in Stokoe Notation (rarely used)

Image Sources: Sign Language Structure: An Outline of the Visual Communication Systems of the American Deaf, 3.9 Signed language notation – Essentials of Linguistics, 2nd edition

This is the birthplace of modern parameter analysis. While it called them other terms (DEZ = Handshape, TAB = Location, SIG = movement and orientation) it has all the elements.

Handshapes each have a separate letter (holsitic). Locations are defined as locations on the body - with a single neutral space location (bodily). Movements and orientations are both absolute meaning they describe directions away-from, towards, left, right, up and down of the signer. It is sometimes stated that Stokoe lacks a way of writing Expressions (NMFs) but this is incorrect! It does have expressions, but only 3 - and they are rarely used.

A longer text in Stokoe

A breakdown of a longer text in Stokoe

Image Sources: Stokoe notation - Wikipedia, 1. A sample sentence represented in Stokoe Notation System: "the woods,... | Download Scientific Diagram

Glyphs are arranged in a mostly linear structure, with some super-script and sub-script letters. Additionally dots and lines are sometimes used as diacritics above and below letters. Sometimes you will see glyphs stacked on top of one-another but not in all versions, as completely linear ASCII/Unicode compatible versions of the system are available. 

Location is placed first, followed by handshape followed by the superscript movement and subscript orientation. Thus the basic order is LHₒᴹ In cases with two hands each hand appears to be indicated separately. Thus the complicated order would be L1H1ₒ₁L2H2ₒ₂ᴹ (where 1 is the dominant hand and 2 is the non-dominant hand). This appears to be very strict.

As such I believe that Stokoe is a true alphabet. Some letters are iconic, like the arrows (orientation and movement) as well as the bodypart locations. But even this iconicity is limited.

Stokoe was highly successful for a while - with dictionaries published in ASL and BSL at least. Additionally apparently one person has their name on their birth certificate in a modified form of Stokoe Notation (apparently meaning "Smile"). But momentum petered out, partially due to the complexity of the system preventing it from being adopted in every-day use, in addition to a desire to explore other systems arising.

Categorisation & Review

• H - present, holistic✅
• O - present, shares a set of characters with M, written as subscript, absolute✅
• L - present, bodily✅
• M - present, shares a set of characters with O, written as superscript, absolute✅
• E - present, but under-specified and under-utilised.✅
• Basic One-Hand Order: LHₒᴹ
• Complex Two-Hand Order: L1H1ₒ₁L2H2ₒ₂ᴹ
• Alphabet 
  • Semi-Iconic
  • Non-Featural

At the time the importance of expressions (NMFs) was not well understood. I would consider Stokoe Notation to be an alphabet once again because all parameters were present to the best of Stokoe's ability.

Praise**:** Another one which is historic in the development of sign language writing systems. It represented a leap forwards in the linguistic analysis of sign languages.

Criticism**:** The choice of symbols that Stokoe makes results in it being quite hard to write as technology has progressed. Aesthetically it also looks quite confusing, in a way that I feel is quite beginner unfriendly and pushes away prospective learners before the get used to it. Like I mentioned above, I believe the complexity of the system prevented it from being adopted into broader use within the Deaf community. Conversely, I don't believe it provides an adequate way to express some of the more advanced sign language grammar - such as classifiers, which makes writing longer passages in it difficult.

On perhaps a broader level, I think it loses something that sign languages value - spatialness and iconicity. Abstracting down to a linear sequence of arbitrary and symbolic characters means we lose a lot of what makes a sign language feel like a sign language - the way signs look like what they mean is lost. This critique is true of many of the writing systems from this point forwards, especially ones that aim to be used outside of an academic context (which was attempted somewhat with Stokoe, such as the creation of dictionaries).

[Another few systems will be skipped here]

HamNoSys (Hamburg Notation System)

Featural Iconic Alphabet

(1984)

According to the DGS Korpus website, HamNoSys exists within the "Stokoe" tradition of phonetic transcription systems. However, it does away with almost all of the glyphs Stokoe himself invented, and instead creates its own featural iconic glyphs. As implied by the name, it was originally created by the University of Hamburg, in Germany.

HamNoSys breakdown

HamNoSys examples

Image Sources: Structure of HamNoSys Notation system | Download Scientific Diagram, PPT - Signs for the future PowerPoint Presentation, free download - ID:5108051

Handshapes recieve individual letters - but there are also ways to modify these with diacritics to produce new handshapes. There is both body-locations and some more detailed neutrals space locations. Movement and orientation are both absolute, meaning that they show directions towards, away-from, left, right, up and down from the signer. It seems like NMFs have only been added in later iterations and are under-developed - mostly reusing glyphs already present for locations and movements.

The order of parameters is seems to be broadly handshape, orientation, location then movement - linearised from left to right. Some letters "drift" upwards and downwards but these aren't considered modifiers to any baseline. Where expression is included, it seems to go on the start, as does a mirroring mark. Thus the basic order is EHOLM. Where both hands are used doing different things, the parameters are noted in the same location as the other hand. As such the two complicated order is: [H¹H²][O¹O²][L¹L²][M¹M²].

HamNoSys has found a decent amount of success in academia - both in sign language studies and within gesture research. It is also in general more prevalent in the EU than anywhere else with a lot of work on German Sign Language (Deutsche Gebärdensprache - DGS) being done in the system. There are also some projects which use HamNoSys to programme virtual avatars to make signs.

It aims for maximal detail - breaking down signs into all their relevant parameter information. It does not aim to be a practical writing system as such, but instead a tool for academia.

Categorisation & Review

• H - present, holisitc (though somewhat finger configurational)✅
• O - present, absolute✅
• L - present✅
• M - present, absolute✅
• E - present, but under-developed.✅
• Basic One-Hand Order: EHOLM
• Complex Two-Hand Order: E[H¹H²][O¹O²][L¹L²][M¹M²]
• Alphabet 
  • Featural
  • Iconic

As such this is clearly an alphabet.

Praise**:** It is seemingly one of the most comprehensive transcription systems available. The move away from being language specific like Stokoe was also helps it be more widely useful, and its iconic featural nature makes it somewhat more intuitive. 

Criticism**:** This is the first system for me to hit what I call the sprawling word problem. As you can see, even simple signs like "ME" have 6 or 7 characters. Signs like "NAME" sprawl even more across the page. Stokoe managed this by using sub- and super- script, though you can detect it even there and in Bergman - a need to write half a dozen individual symbols for even a simple sign.

This is less of a problem for HamNoSys because it is not trying to be a writing system but instead a transcription system. However I still think this is a problem. The longer and more sprawling any word is, the more difficult it is to process. This makes sense for complex signs, which would be the equivalent of long words - but if a system unnecessarily inflates the size of words then it becomes an impediment. 

Aaaaaaaaaand we have reached the image limit. As this is a long post, I reccomend you check out the rest of it on my blog available here: https://lukapona.blogspot.com/2026/05/how-to-write-sign-language-part-3.html

I may include some images in the comments demonstrating some other alphabets, but for now I will skip to some conclusions:

Conclusions

In this post I have analysed the following systems:

• Mimographie (1825) - Featural Iconic Semi-Syllabary: L[HO]ME
• Kinemics (1960) - Alphabet, probably?: unsure
• Stokoe Notation (1960) - Semi-Iconic Alphabet: LHₒᴹ (E rare)
• Bergman Notation (1977) - Semi-Iconic, Semi-Featural Alphabet: HOLM (no E)
• HamNoSys (1984) - Featural Iconic Alphabet: EHOLM
• Signfont (1987) - Featural Iconic Alphabet: E HALM
• ASLphabet (1992) - Featural Iconic Abjad: HLM (no O, no E)
• ELiS (1997) - Featural Iconic Alphabet - HOLME
• SLIPA (2003) - Semi-featural Alphabet: HᴼLᴬM E
• ASLfont (& RSLfont) (2013) - Featural Iconic Alphabet: HOLME
• Auswrit (2022) - Featural Iconic Abugida: [HO][HO]LM (E incomplete)
• SLDWS (2024) - Featural Alphabet: HOLM (no E)

In writing this I have gained a deeper appreciation for alphabets. Up until this point I had never felt satisfied by any alphabetic sign language writing system. They seemed complicated and difficult to process - like a step by step recipe rather than a word my brain could process quickly.

But now I have written this whole blog-post I now see the incredible work, time and consideration that went into each of these. Even the ones I dislike the most and criticise most heavily are still labours of love. And each has some new perspective to offer us.

We need to think about its purpose. One of the more complicated and detailed systems (e.g. HamNoSys) may be a good option for academia, but would be too clunky to use for everyday use. If we want to use an alphabet for writing every day sign languages... I think we aren't there yet.

Of the options presented I think something to learn the most from in this regard is ASLphabet. The choice to make spellings simpler by missing out information and letting the reader guess from context could be a big leg up in efficiency over other systems that go for maximum detail. I think efficiency of this sort or similar is what would be needed if we were to ever aim for mass adoption.

Ultimately I am still not the biggest fan of sign language alphabets, nor a user of one. While perhaps technically possible, I think they strip away some of the visual-ness that is so important to sign languages. If projectional systems feel more like a diagram than than a word, parameter alphabets feel more like an ingredients list. I have also yet to see classifiers done "well" in them, that is to say in a way that I see and understand as classifiers.

My heart lies with logographies and projectional systems - which retain that visual aspect far more clearly.

Disclaimer! I'm not asking how to sign a song or how lyrics would be interpreted. I'm just wondering how (or if) the general structure of a song/notes are translated in ASL signing of songs.

Example: Whitney Houston with "I Will Always Love You" and the iconic "And I-I-I-I-I..." It's only one word but it takes up a bit more time than other words in the song. Does that make a difference in signing?

Or the chorus of Hello by Adele. When she sings "Hello from the other side," the word 'side' is sung as a longer note. Hypothetically, would an interpreter at an Adele concert, however the song is interpreted, hold a sign for the same amount of time as the note being sung?

Or am I overthinking this and nothing is done differently lol.

This is simply a random shower thought, so if there's a different subreddit I should have asked this in, please let me know! Thank you 🖤

Hello again! I had such a great time with my first I went to my second.

This time I baked cookies for everyone! They were super appreciated. A Deaf man I had barely just met ate quite a few cookies and pretty quickly gave me a sign name. I’m so confused!! I was not expecting this so soon at all. I thought it would have come from someone I had known for a while.

Is that really all it takes? I like it but it was so sudden. I gave him about 20 cookies to take home lol. I’m still just a beginner 😳

In my ASL class we have to gloss a movie script and one of the sentences is "my elbow hurts." I know that elbow is directional so you just pointed it, but I also heard pain is directional. How would I sign "my elbow hurts" if I need both my hands to sign pain? Would I only do one hand while right next to my elbow?

Currently doing an interpretation of "confrontation" from jeckyl and hyde the musical and both characters kinda fight over one body and I've seen some really interesting ideas for differenciating them, like Jeckyl signs more word-for-word way whilst hyde is more deaf coulture signing. But I've only been learning sign lanugage for a wee while so idk how to properly translate songs even (this is my first attempt) but if any of you have any ideas how to easily seperate the characters that would be really appreaciated :D

(I'm learning swedish sign language but there is no community for that so I'm asking here since its not really a grammatical question)

EDIT: I want to clarify that this is for a school project, a test on the course I've been taking. I'm 17. I do appreciate all the people saying to hire consultants or leave it a few years and understand that I'm under qualified if it were for a job but I just wanna get an A on my test haha

hello, i've received a secondhand account of an asl sign but can't figure it out despite researching on handspeak and search engine.

i have basically no knowledge of asl so i do apologize if something doesn't make sense as there's not a video of it either.

the sign starts with both hands flat and palm up resting horizontally & the pinkyfinger sides touching the stomach. the hands are not splayed out nor is a thumb tucked in, just kinda like a hand on a "halt" stop sign.

both hands simultaneously rise up until at chest/shoulder level, then both hands (fingers don't move position) splay slightly outward.

EDIT: clarification bc i realized it might be relevant - it was being signed repeatedly someone coming towards the person, but it wasn't in a threatening manner, more of a high energy somewhat manic.

I have snake bites and a lady pointed to under her lip in the same location, and did a screwing motion. Is this just a sign for lip piercing? I can add a video with example if needed. I tried looking it up and came up short.

Edit: it seems to be a word for piercing! Also i meant “snakebites” as in the lip piercing not “snake bites” as in the medical emergency haha