shel

Shel

@shel

The Transsexual Chofetz Chaim

Mutant, librarian, poet, union rabble rouser, dog, Ashkenazi Jewish. Neuroweird, bodyweird, mostly sleepy.

I write about transformative justice, community, love, Judaism, Neurodivergence, mental health, Disability, geography, rivers, labor, and libraries; through poetry, opinionated essays, and short fiction.

I review Schoolhouse Rock! songs at @PropagandaRock

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shel
@shel

During class this week I feel like I reached a new milestone of ASL comprehension because I was chatting (in sign) with a classmate and she was like "fsLAKE SIGN ME DON'T-KNOW"1 and I was like "MAYBE WATER cl(C-modified, gesturing a disc shape)"2 and then after our breakout groups, we asked the teacher "wh-SIGN fsLAKE?"3 and he signed "WATER cl(C-modified gesturing a disc shape)"4!!! He signed exactly the same thing I guessed it might be! I used ASL classifiers to correctly derive a sign!!! Woo!!

  1. "I don't know how to sign (spells L-A-K-E)"

  2. "maybe it's WATER then using little Cs with your hands to gesture a disc shape?"

  3. "What's the sign for (spells L-A-K-E)?"

  4. "Lake"

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in reply to @shel's post:

modulusshift
@modulusshift

written ASL is a trip. correct me if I'm wrong, but spelling is basically just a bridge to English, right? I can't quite wrap my head around how a deaf native ASL signer conceptualizes phonetic signs.

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shel
@shel

so ASL doesn't have a written form, what I'm doing is called glossing, which is a method of representing ASL in writing; but it's not actually a true representation of the language. It's mostly used for linguistics papers and learning textbooks. fsWORD means fingerspell W-O-R-D. cl-A means "classifier A" which refers to a certain hand shape.

fs stands for finger spell. ASL has signs for every letter of the English alphabet. It's used to spell proper nouns as well as some loanwords from English (often these loanwords are spelled so quickly they become a sign, like fsAPARTMENT becoming fsAPT becoming APARTMENT where you just kinda do clA-clK-clA really really fast). It can also be used to provide an English translation; basically the same as saying "Wie sprechen auf Deutsche 'Lobster"?" in German.

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shel
@shel

Do it!!!!! It's so so useful and good. More people knowing sign is good. It's so helpful for my auditory processing issues and non-verbal episodes. I'm taking classes through QueerASL which does online classes out of Vancouver but if you have a local organization that does classes with Deaf instructors definitely go with that since there's lots of dialectical differences.

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shel
@shel

When I started learning I also did it with a cohort of friends who all started taking the classes together and it definitely makes it much more immediately useful in daily life and more fun and easy to learn. I'm the only one of that cohost that has stuck it out this far, I think, but being surrounded by people who know the basics really helps.

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