A sign is built from parts · ASL, signs as a graph

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Lab / No. 010 · ASLnode: 110 · type: experiment · drawings 2018–19

A sign is built from parts.

ASL, American Sign Language, is a full language with its own grammar. I drew these signs in 2018–19 for teaching material. Here they move, connect into a graph, and quiz you back.

Sign labels are being checked.

Signs that move
The graph
Play
Context

Signs that move

node: 110.1 · motion

A drawing can’t move, so the packs drew a start, an end and an arrow. Here the hand travels between them and the path draws itself.

Motion is off: you see the frames side by side.

LIONlion · suggested
The curved hand sweeps back over the head, like a mane.
BEARbear · suggested
Arms crossed on the chest, the fingers bend and scratch.
RABBITrabbit · suggested
Two fingers at the head lift up, like ears.
TURKEYturkey · suggested
Under the chin, the fingers wiggle down.
HELPhelp · suggested
The same sign travels along different paths: the direction shows who helps whom.
GALLAUDET (name sign)Gallaudet, the name · suggested
From beside the eye, outward. It is often explained as tracing his glasses.
DEERdeer · suggested
Open hands at the head spread out, like antlers.
MONKEYmonkey · suggested
Curved hands scratch up and down the sides.

ASL as a knowledge graph

node: 110.2 · graph

ASL is a system of reusable parts, not thousands of separate gestures.

Every sign links to five parameters: handshape, location, movement, palm orientation and the face. Tap a part to light up every sign that shares it. Tap a sign to see its five parts.

Handshape
Location
Movement
Palm orientation
Face (non-manual markers)

Pick a sign or a part.

Signs

Parameters

Handshape

Location

Movement

Palm orientation

Face (non-manual markers)

In these drawings the face stays relaxed. In real signing the face carries grammar too, for example raised eyebrows for a yes-or-no question.

Play

node: 110.3 · practice

Two small games. Nothing is saved: close the page and it forgets.

The motion, the graph and the games need JavaScript. The drawings and the timeline are below.

Context

node: 110.4 · history and poetry

Walk the timeline

Drawing: portrait of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, with round glasses and a bow tie.

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet helped start Deaf education in the United States, together with Laurent Clerc, a Deaf teacher. One step at a time.

1787
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet is born.
1805
He graduates from college.
1812
He decides to give his life to the ministry.
1815
He travels to Europe to learn how Deaf students are taught. In Paris he meets Laurent Clerc, a Deaf teacher, who agrees to come back with him.
1817
A school for Deaf students opens in Hartford, with Clerc as its first teacher.
1821
He marries Sophia Fowler, a Deaf woman who was one of the school’s first students.
1831
He steps down as head of the school.
1851
He dies, at 63.
1857
His son Edward becomes head of a new school for Deaf and blind children in Washington, D.C.
1864
President Lincoln signs the law that lets the school grant college degrees. Its college was first called the “National Deaf-Mute College”. Today it carries the Gallaudet name.
Historical name, quoted as it was. “Mute” is not used today.

How poetry works in sign

The eight devices from the literacy pack. ASL poets often rhyme with handshapes, repeating one shape through a poem the way spoken poems repeat sounds.

Personification
Giving human traits to something that isn’t human.
In ASL poetryA signer can become the sun or a tree: the body takes on the thing (often called role shift).
Imagery
Language that paints a picture.
In ASL poetryClassifier handshapes show shape, size and motion in the space in front of the signer, so the picture builds in the air.
Foreshadowing
A hint of what is going to happen next.
In ASL poetryA handshape or a spot in space set up early can come back later and carry its meaning with it.
Simile
Comparing two unlike things with “like” or “as”.
In ASL poetryA poet can set two images side by side in space, or use a comparison sign, to say one is like the other.
Metaphor
A comparison without “like” or “as”.
In ASL poetryMany poems lean on shared ideas, such as up for happy and down for sad, built right into the movement.
Onomatopoeia
A word that sounds like what it describes.
In ASL poetryASL poetry isn’t built on sound. Some poets use rhythm, repeated movement and mouth shapes to play a similar part.
Hyperbole
Exaggerating on purpose to make a point.
In ASL poetryBigger, faster or longer movement, with a stronger face, can stretch a meaning on purpose.
Idiom
A phrase that means something other than what it says.
In ASL poetryASL has its own idioms that don’t translate sign by sign into English, just as English idioms don’t translate into ASL.