Sunday, June 03, 2007
Color ASL Sign Origin: SEE, Unmarked, Or ???
Color signs have first letter assigned to them...quite SEE-like, yet they did not orginiate from SEE...so, how did they get assigned with first letters???
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14 comments:
Cy,
The oldest deaf people can be contacted by consulting the NAD for
their names and email addresses. They would be only too happy to share the information you need.
Consult Dr. Bernard Bragg (DOD),
Class of '52, Dr. Mervin Garretson,
Class of '47, Ms. Agnes Padden,
Class of '47.
I neglected to mention something else in my previous post. You go to the bathroom and look at yourself in the mirror. When you sign colors, you will see English
words on your lips.
Also: You will see Spoken English
words on your mouth when you sign
"How are you?" Why do we use two
"CC" handshapes for "How"? Where does it come from? None other than
from French spread by Clerc:
"Comment". That is: Comment allex
vous? = How are you? Albeit in a a mixture of FSL and English words, you are brainwashed by mouthing automatically in English "How are you?" ASL is a complicated language.
That was why Stokoe proclaimed
ASL to be a foreign language. At
first, I was shocked in 1960s,
but an afterthought, I came to totally agree with him.
Search for the truth and you will find it.
I just finished reading a book which contains a possible clue to this. I'll be reviewing the book more extensively at my blog in the next day or two, but it appears that it's a holdover from the "methodical signing" back in Clerc/Gallaudet days. It seems they may have started out with a very SEE like thought to bringing sign language to the United States. Some of it was adopted and then it all ran away from them as the language picked up its own steam. I thought that bit of history was really quite interesting.
You can find information about unmarked and marked on my site
http://deafaware.blogspot.com/2007/06/unmarked-and-marked-handshapes.html
anonymous,
sorry your comment did not publish. I did click for publish but it did not appear. If you care to re-post?
Jean,
Thanks. Hope Bragg reads blogs and might offer some clues??
DCAblog,
I have these in my teacher box...somewhere. I will check out your site. Thanks.
Looking forward to what you will post on your blog. :)
http://my.videoegg.com/video/dhxWyL
look at my response :)
darlene
Darlene,
Thanks for your response but I don't think that is what I am attempting to discuss.
Nearly all color signs are assigned with first word letters. Unmarked signs are handshapes assigned to create signs. Only few of the color signs have unmarked handsigns such as B and S...therefore it means it did not originate from unmarked HS assignment or from SEE...so, how did the color sign get assigned with first letter signs if they were created long before SEE, even during my parent's generation of Great Depression when SEE was never heard of and just how far back did the first-letter color signs surfaced? How? Based on what?
Hi Cy,
You bring up an interesting point about the color signs. I am not an expert in that field.
I could think of a few color signs that do not have a first letter with it like white, black, red, and maybe orange (I'm not too sure as it is a closed "O" fist)
The rest of the colors use first letter.
What about gold and silver? They don't have a first letter.
Why is it this way? Me wonder.
Maybe you can look up Gallaudet's video archives to see if anyone signed in colors if that will help?
Cy: if you look at my latest post, you'll see that the likely source for these initialized, pre-SEE signs are probably left overs from L'Epeé's "Methodical Signing" which was very similar to SEE except that it was abandoned shortly after Clerc and Gallaudet arrived in the United States in the early 19th century.
I'm sorry I wasn't clear on my vlog. Its my first vlog. LOL.
From Linguistics of American Sign Language by Valli & Lucas:
"The American Sign Language signs for colors, the days of the week, for wine, and others are direct translation from cognate French signs and uses different initials of course when the English spelling differs."
What I was trying to tell you is that it was set up the way it is. The information seems to show that ASL did not change the color sign since it started the language in early 1800's. There are some signs you cannot change. I was trying to make an analogy from colors and WORK. We cannot change them but we can interpret them differently.
Sorry I wasn't clear :) Hope that helps...
Darlene
Darlene,
Ah! I get it. :) BEG clarified it for me also...believe she is talking about the similar thing as you were...
Sorry, 2 did not publish. One was an anonymous message for Jean from Rene...telling her she did a marvelous job of sharing information...another was an anonymous discussing the origins of colors.
I don't know why my blog publishes most but not selected few. Today my blog did not publish 4 out of 13.
Wonder if its happened to other bloggers who moderate their blogs??
There may be some of that, using French cognates, but black, white and red (and orange?) are not using any manual alphabet handshapes. All the other colors that are initialized all match English (that I know: yellow, green, pink, purple, blue, brown).
The days of the week all match the English words except for Thursday, presumably because T's already used for Tuesday. But Thursday uses an H shape, not J for jeudi.
But certainly other words (voir which is see, think of the V used in the sign...) seem to be.
Yup, it's from LSF. I can't cite sources at the moment, but I've been to France and yes, the movements and locations for the color signs are very similar to the ones in ASL.
Rouge, for red, is signed the same way, except it uses the "r" handshape.
Jaune - yellow - same location and movement, but uses j
Noir - black - same location and movement
Vert and bleu - green and blue - same location, different movement from ours
I could go and on, but oui, les signes initialisees de France.
-moi of Random Thoughts and Musings
What about the days of the week? Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday? ASL or SEE?
am
Last anonymous at 4 am,
Yes, days of the week is another good example. Jean Boutcher - any comment on possible origins for the days of the week? She offered an explanation of how the color signs could have originated from in a previous comment.
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