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Comment by bluGill | Hacker News Reader

It can be useful to have some signs, but don't confuse a few signs with a language. One like going to a foreign country and knowing how to ask where the bathroom is, and understanding because more their pointing than their words vs going to the country and getting into a discussion of something weird with a stranger that you just happen to meet.

Sign language is a real language you can learn the language. Or you can learn a few signs: there is a place for both, but know which place you are in and don't pretend more.

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Why do I always sense anger seething below the surface of any conversation about sign language?

I know exactly what you mean. My gf works at a school for the deaf and we're both hearing.... and I'm sensitive to this pensiveness you mention. Three reasons: there is so much bad info out there, asl and deaf culture are evolving as we observe, and hardly anyone is cataloging or curating the info. There are no ambassadors. It parallels health information imo. I guess I should add the contemporary attitude of self-righteousness on the u.s. when ppl learn sth abt any other group they tend to shove it others' faces. E.g. knowing that it was Illegal to drive a car with headphones on, I once dared to ask if deaf ppl were allowed to drive. Instead if a simple yes, I got chewed out by a hearing person for my ignorance.

> knowing that it was Illegal to drive a car with headphones on, I once dared to ask if deaf ppl were allowed to drive.

Did you ever get an actual answer? I'd guess yes, but it's a fair question

If I were to try to come up with a rationale, I guess it would be if you are able to hear, you have a duty to make your hearing available to increase safety. But, we won't automatically remove the right to drive from someone who can't hear as well or at all.

I think this occurs more in some countries than others, with low sign language awareness. Maybe the US especially due to monolinguality. It seems people love to assume things about other languages that are false and can be insulting. Like when you say an English sentence to a Mexican who doesn't understand it, and you respond by saying the same thing again but louder and slower. It looks like you think they're dense.

Another example, the notion that monkeys can "learn sign language". They can learn to use some signs, like a newborn can learn some words, but how would you feel as a French speaker if someone said "look, the monkey speaks French!" just because they taught the monkey some French words? It implies not that the monkey is smart, but that French is so simplistic that even monkeys can understand it.

> Like when you say an English sentence to a Mexican who doesn't understand it, and you respond by saying the same thing again but louder and slower. It looks like you think they're dense.

My wife is learning Spanish right now because we are moving to Costa Rica. Her most used phrase is “de espacio, por favor” which means “slowly, please”. She’s able to understand much more of the language when folks slow down and annunciate clearly.

When I lived in Chile as a teen, I also asked people to do the same thing frequently until I became proficient. I still ask sometimes in other Spanish-speaking countries because their accent or dialect differs from what my ears are most used to.

Speaking slowly and clearly to anyone learning a language is incredibly useful and is not insulting in any way.

Yea, but speaking slowly and clearly is _only_ useful to anyone learning the language.

If I spoke to you in Klingon, and you don't understand Klingon. Would speaking to you in Klingon slower and louder help you? Undoubtedly, no, it would instead make me a rude person.

Depends. English is somewhat special in that it's the current lingua franca, so almost everyone has some exposure to it - and at the same time, it's a hodge-podge of words from different language families, so it's quite likely that an English speaker can pick out some words they understand from another language, if spoken slowly ("false friends" notwithstanding). So whether you're speaking English so someone who doesn't know it, or someone is speaking a language you don't know to you-the-English-speaker, there's stochastic benefit in slowing down.

It's the same phenomenon as within language families. I don't know Ukrainian, but I can pick up words that share etymology with Polish words, assuming they speak slowly enough for me to isolate individual words. Similarly, I don't know much German, but I can route individual words through English.

I had a similar experience while learning German. Berliners talk very quickly and I'd frequently request "Sprechen Sie langsam, bitte" aka speak slowly please. Unfortunately they'd usually switch to English after that, but when the speaker would stick it out with me I'd come away feeling like I'd gotten a little better with the language.

Because I have gone to see films in a number of languages I do not understand but they were sub-titled. I can't remember going to one that was not anime, and then not hearing someone complaining about having to read the dialogue.

These films (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French and German) all clearly had posters at the theaters saying they were sub-titles and yet there was always someone demanding the movie be in English.

Also I think a number of people have poor/slow reading skills that they can't bluff about when someone uses signing.

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