ASL / baby sign

[pne]

I've kind of decided to try to learn some basic ASL signs to use with babysign, since one of Stella's day-care children is 4 months and the other is 2 and just starting to speak... and since I'll be speaking English to both of them, ASL kind of makes more sense than DGS, especially since I won't be signing in complete sentences to them anyway (I expect) so it doesn't matter so much if I don't have a proper handle on the grammar. (Though that's a weak justification; based on what I speak to them, BSL would be even more appropriate, if anything. But ASL seems to have the best available Internet resources.)

So far, I've found SigningSavvy as a sign dictionary.

Amy can already recognise a few signs (at least eat, drink, cat, baby) I showed her.

I think I need a signing userpic; perhaps me fingerspelling my name or something. And I wonder whether to use "duck" as a namesign based on my Martin userpic, which I use nearly everywhere one can upload one's own avatar. (He's my Gravatar, for example, and I think also my Facebook profile picture.)

Comments

[ifeedformula.livejournal.com]

I know a little ASL. :) I know how to sign the alphabet, the signs for father and mother as well as the signs for cat and bird which is about the extent of my signing knowledge.

[conuly]

When I was doing ASL with Evangeline, I kept cribbing signs from BSL and Auslan because I found their (comparatively few) dictionaries to be more comprehensive. I can give you some links if you give me a minute.

[noidd.livejournal.com]

I did two "semesters" of ASL to attempt to gain some fluency in the language last year. I had orders of magnitude more success compared to any other language I tried to learn because:

a) You communicate concepts more than words.
b) There is usually some kind of link between the sign and the concept.
c) If you don't know how to express a word you can gracefully (or un-gracefully in my case) fall back to finger-spelling.

Also, frankly... the Deaf community is extremely welcoming and willing to help. Unlike attempting to use the spoken languages in their native countries, people would just not want to bother and reply to me in English.