Sutton SignWriting, or simply SignWriting, is a system of writing sign languages. It is highly featural and visually iconic, both in the shapes of the characters, which are abstract pictures of the hands, face, and body, and in their spatial arrangement on the page, which does not follow a sequential order like the letters that make up written English words. It was developed in 1974 by Valerie Sutton, a dancer who had, two years earlier, developed DanceWriting. Some newer standardized forms are known as the International Sign Writing Alphabet (ISWA).
The American Manual Alphabet (AMA) is a manual alphabet that augments the vocabulary of American Sign Language.
Several manual alphabets in use around the world employ two hands to represent some or all of the letters of an alphabet, usually as a part of a deaf sign language. Two-handed alphabets are less widespread than one-handed manual alphabets. They may be used to represent the Latin alphabet or the Cyrillic alphabet.
The OK gesture or OK sign or ring gesture is performed by connecting the thumb and index into a circle, and holding the other fingers straight or relaxed away from the palm. Commonly used with divers it signifies "I am OK" or "Are you OK?" when underwater. In most English-speaking countries it denotes approval, agreement, and that all is well or "okay". In other contexts or cultures, similar gestures may have different meanings or connotations including those that are negative, offensive, financial, numerical, devotional, political, or purely linguistic.
Stokoe notation is the first phonemic script used for sign languages. It was created by William Stokoe for American Sign Language (ASL), with Latin letters and numerals used for the shapes they have in fingerspelling, and iconic glyphs to transcribe the position, movement, and orientation of the hands. It was first published as the organizing principle of Sign Language Structure: An Outline of the Visual Communication Systems of the American Deaf (1960), and later also used in A Dictionary of American Sign Language on Linguistic Principles, by Stokoe, Casterline, and Croneberg (1965). In the 1965 dictionary, signs are themselves arranged alphabetically, according to their Stokoe transcription, rather than being ordered by their English glosses as in other sign-language dictionaries. This made it the only ASL dictionary where the reader could look up a sign without first knowing how to translate it into English. The Stokoe notation was later adapted to British Sign Language (BSL) in Kyle et al. (1985) and to Australian Aboriginal sign languages in Kendon (1988). In each case the researchers modified the alphabet to accommodate phonemes not found in ASL.
In deaf culture and sign language, a sign name is a special sign that is used to uniquely identify a person.
Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL), also known as Hand Talk, Plains Sign Talk, and First Nation Sign Language, is a trade language, formerly trade pidgin, that was once the lingua franca across what is now central Canada, the central and western United States and northern Mexico, used among the various Plains Nations. It was also used for story-telling, oratory, various ceremonies, and by deaf people for ordinary daily use. It is thought by some to be a manually coded language or languages; however, there is not substantive evidence establishing a connection between any spoken language and Plains Sign Talk.
Israeli Sign Language, also known as Shassi or ISL, is the most commonly used sign language by the Deaf community of Israel. Some other sign languages are also used in Israel, among them Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language.
In sign languages, handshape, or dez, refers to the distinctive configurations that the hands take as they are used to form words. In Stokoe terminology it is known as the DEZ, an abbreviation of designator. Handshape is one of five components of a sign, along with location, orientation, movement, and nonmanual features. Different sign languages make use of different handshapes.
The grammar of American Sign Language (ASL) is the best studied of any sign language, though research is still in its infancy, dating back only to William Stokoe in the 1960s.
The French manual alphabet is an alphabet used for French Sign Language (LSF), both to distinguish LSF words and to sign French words in LSF.
The fig sign is a mildly obscene gesture used at least since the Roman Age in Italy, Southern Europe, parts of the Mediterranean region, including in Turkish culture, and has also been adopted by Slavic cultures and South Africa. The gesture uses a thumb wedged in between two fingers. This gesture is most commonly used to ward off the evil eye, insult someone, or deny a request. It is also used more innocuously in Northwestern Europe and countries such as the UK, US, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and Czech Republic to pretend taking the nose off a child.
An obscene gesture is a movement or position of the body, especially of the hands or arms, that is considered exceedingly offensive or vulgar in some particular cultures. Such gestures are often sexually suggestive.
In sign language, an initialized sign is one that is produced with a handshape(s) that corresponds to the fingerspelling of its equivalent in the locally dominant oral language, based on the respective manual alphabet representing that oral language's orthography. The handshape(s) of these signs then represent the initial letter of their written equivalent(s). In some cases, this is due to the local oral language having more than one equivalent to a basic sign. For example, in ASL, the signs for "class" and "family" are the same, except that "class" is signed with a 'C' handshape, and "family" with an 'F' handshape. In other cases initialization is required for disambiguation, though the signs are not semantically related. For example, in ASL, "water" it signed with a 'W' handshape touching the mouth, while "dentist" is similar apart from using a 'D' handshape. In other cases initialization is not used for disambiguation; the ASL sign for "elevator", for example, is an 'E' handshape moving up and down along the upright index finger of the other hand.
si5s is a writing system for American Sign Language that resembles a handwritten form of SignWriting. It was devised in 2003 in New York City by Robert Arnold, with an unnamed collaborator. In July 2010 at the Deaf Nation World Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada, it was presented and formally announced to the public. Soon after its release, si5s development split into two branches: the "official" si5s track monitored by Arnold and a new set of partners at ASLized, and the "open source" ASLwrite. In 2015, Arnold had a falling out with his ASLized partners, took down the si5s.org website, and made his Twitter account private. ASLized has since removed any mention of si5s from their website.
Sign languages such as American Sign Language (ASL) are characterized by phonological processes analogous to, yet dissimilar from, those of oral languages. Although there is a qualitative difference from oral languages in that sign-language phonemes are not based on sound, and are spatial in addition to being temporal, they fulfill the same role as phonemes in oral languages.
ASLwrite is a writing system that developed from si5s. It was created to be an open-source, continuously developing orthography for American Sign Language (ASL), trying to capture the nuances of ASL's features. ASLwrite is currently used by no more than a handful of people, primarily revolving around discussions happening on Facebook and, previously, Google Groups. However, it is currently spreading, with comic strips, posters and more becoming available.
An Esperanto manual alphabet is included as part of the Signuno project for manually coded Esperanto. Signuno is based on the signs of International Sign, but adapted to the grammatical system of Esperanto.
Protactile is a language used by DeafBlind people using tactile channels. Unlike other sign languages, which are heavily reliant on visual information, protactile is oriented towards touch and is practiced on the body. Protactile communication originated out of communications by DeafBlind people in Seattle in 2007 and incorporates signs from American Sign Language. Protactile is an emerging system of communication in the United States, with users relying on shared principles such as contact space, tactile imagery, and reciprocity.
