This week I learned a lot of new and simple words in ASL! I learned how to sign different relatives, different relationships, friendships, and words to describe someone’s personality! As I practiced these signs using a helpful YouTube video, I noticed that the male signs such as man, husband, brother, uncle, and boy sign from the head while the female signs such as woman, wife, sister, aunt, and girl sign from the chin.
Difference between male and female signs
At first, I thought this may be a little sexist and an outdated stereotype of “men are the thinkers” while “women are the talkers.” However, when I searched it up, it came to my surprise that the reasoning behind it is actually really cute.
The ASL sign for “man” and “woman” is a derivative of French Sign Language. The male signs are by the forehead to represent the brim of a baseball cap and the female signs are by the chin to represent the French bonnet.
I think that is such a creative way of deciding the signs for man and woman. The signs in ASL always surprise me with their intuitive thinking towards the representation of a sign.
From vocabulary to sentence structure
Although learning ASL has been a lot of fun, I’ve noticed that I may have started learning some things in the wrong order. I’ve learned a lot of simple words and some expressions however, aside from questions, I haven’t learned how to properly form sentences. Obviously, this is a very crucial part to any language. It’s great if you know a lot of vocabulary but unfortunately, if you don’t know sentence structure, along with transition words, then it can be very difficult to have a conversation.
Next week, I’d like to focus on the sentence structure of ASL so that I can properly envision myself having a smooth conversation with someone else.