I have questions about sign language

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I have questions about sign language but Google throws up various answers and I (from limited knowledge) understand there are different variations.. British, American and I presume others. I really don't intend to appear goady or insulting, I genuinely just want to learn.

When using sign language how would you differentiate between people in a conversation when talking about other people? For example, if I was telling a friend what John and James did at the weekend, would you need to spell out their names? I've seen on TV it looks like people often shorten it to just signing the first letter of someone's name. Is this true? How would you differentiate if talking about people with the same first letter?

How do you sign different tenses? Again, just from watching the TV, I can see where certain signs coordinate with certain words but not more than that. For example, watching Mr Tumble this morning and for the line "playing with my friends is lots of fun" and I could see a sign for what I assume is "play" or "playing", one for "friends" and one for "fun." Is it complex to sign the past tense, "I was playing with friends, it was fun" etc. Or maybe it's all about context of the conversation rather than some of the words themselves?

Or maybe lip reading plays a much bigger part in it all than I realised?

Apologies if anything I've said offends, it's honestly not my intention. I live in the city in the UK with the highest population of deaf people and I've always wanted to take sign language classes!

Hi, will answer your questions. Yes different countries have their own signed languages. As per spoken languages. In Britain it is BSL.

Shows like Mr Tumble often used key word sign / Makaton which are sign systems... not actual languages (much simpler, often used for people with learning disabilities).

Deaf people often have a 'sign name' this might be their initials, or something else totally. It might be a sign that has something to do with what they look like, or an interest etc. eg I have a friend whose sign name is 'train' as he is into train spotting. So if he was talking about John Jones, whose sign name is the signed letters JJ, he would first establish who he was talking about (JJ, adding context if needed - eg - you know John, went out with my sister in sixth form, big ears, loves Man Utd?) and he may point to a space to 'set up' where John Jones is, physically in space, in this conversations. Then the next time and subsequent times John is mentioned, he can point to that space, the same way in spoken conversation you might say 'John' first, then 'he' or 'him' thereafter.

to answer your question re first letters, if you did happen to have two friends with the same sign name, you'd clarify it just like in spoken language. Eg 'no not John with the big ears. Other John. Uncle John who just got married for the fourth time - that John!'

Tenses are quite simple in signed languages. A timeline may be for example across the front of the body or from over the shoulder (the past) to in front of the body (now, future) or a simple past tense might be literally signing 'shops-I-go-finish' whereby signing 'finish' signifies you have been to the shops. Likewise you might sign 'tomorrow-shops-we-go' - the verb go doesn't change in the way it would in many spoken languages. Context tells us the tense.

If your talking about John and jack in the same conversation you would use the initials of their surname to differentiate them so John Doe would be jd and jack black would be jb much in the same way as you would if you were speaking about two Jane's ie Jane A and Jane B.
As for tenses if I remember correctly there are different signs for them. But I'll qualify that with the fact that I was never fluent in BSL and I haven't used it in over 25 years.
Btw Mr Tumble is teaching sign language to very young children and it's the very beginning of the basics that hes using

Cross posted with your much better and clearer answer @Georgie743

Thank you both! That makes perfect sense. I never really gave any thought to the fact Mr Tumble would be using Makaton, even though I have read about that before. It's just so simple to take for granted how easy those of us who are not hard of hearing have it that I wanted to understand better.

Bear in mind, too, that in BSL there will be regional variations in signs used, just as there are regional variations in words spoken.

Poster one had it. My sign name is the first and last letter of my name in Irish Sign Language. I'm in Scotland but the Irish one handed alphabet is well known here and has informed a lot of the signs known in St Vincent's Variation (a regional form of BSL).

BSL doesn't have the same grammatical structure as English, so words might not be in the same order as in English. Like a PP said, the space around you is used to convey meaning. People and places might be 'placed' in the space to enable you to refer back to them.

Like English, BSL also has regional variations, so the sign used for a word in one area might look very different to one used in another area.

Mr Tumble uses Makaton which has key word signs, used in English word order, at the same time as spoken language. The signs are based on BSL but are sometimes simplified. BSL doesn't rely on voice at all but lip pattern & facial expression is an important part of the whole message

The fact the space around you is used in that way is absolutely fascinating.

I knew there were geographical and regional differences which is why I didn't want to rely on Google or that new fangled AI search result section :)

I've wondered similar, especially re tenses - thanks @Georgie743 !

The tenses here almost remind me of Spanish whereby you have an upside down question mark at the start of a question so you go into the sentence already knowing that it's a question.

I listened to an interview with Marlee Matlin once where she was talking about the challenges of acting on the West Wing for both her and the actor playing her interpreter.

As described above (as I understand it) ASL is simplified in conversational, day to day speech. But for The West Wing the dialogue to be really precise because she was often talking about statistics or legal and political issues where precision matters. So her signing had to be much more detailed and precise than usual and it was so FAST! it was a lot for her to sign and then the man playing Kenny had to be really careful in knowing his lines, not to speak ahead of her signing.

Thank you, @Georgie743 - that's such a clear and fascinating answer. I started learning BSL at uni and I really wish I'd carried on with it now.

This is fascinating. My DD is learning BSL as her best friend is deaf. They work in a really loud club together and they can communicate really easily using it.

I'd love an AMA on it. Will look later to see if there is one.

That's only if it's written down. 😁

If you live in an area with a high Deaf using population, should be quite easy to find a night class. Some places run six week, non-certificated taster courses but if you want to start a formal journey, look for a Signature level 1 course.

There's a really interesting bit on language acquisition in Stephen Pinker's The Langauge Instinct and some of it focuse on sign language (ASL I think), basically saying it is much harder to acquire the nuances of the language especially tenses if you learn it as an adult as opposed to learning it as your first language. It mirrors learning a spoken language in many ways.

Of course, I just meant that they're similar in the sense you know the context at the start :)

I would definitely love to do classes. I've finished my professional exams and then had a baby so it's been hectic, but it's on my bucket list!

I don’t know BSL, but I work in a special school and we use Signalong (which is very similar to Makaton) so can talk about that. My understanding is BSL is a lot more complex. Signalong/Makaton are used in combination with the spoken words, not on their own, to give people with learning difficulties more assistance with comprehension, as signing combined with speech helps hugely. It also provides a practical tool for people who can’t vocalise to be able to communicate (a number of our children cannot speak, but can sign very well - they will also generally use a device to communicate as well such as an iPad which does text-to-speech, alongside). We tend to sign nouns and verbs, so we might say “do you need the toilet?” while signing “you” and “toilet”. There’s no tenses etc, it’s a much simpler system.

Definitely go to a class op - I learnt in my 20s and it's brilliant. H is hard of hearing and he learnt as well and we've taught DS.

I find BSL much more logical than English with clear rules. The deaf community I've found are also generally much more direct. There's no beating around the bush - they say it or don't say it. It's been a really valuable experience.

This is very interesting! English I believe is one of the most complex languages to learn, it's great to hear learning BSL is easier to rules. I have an A Level understanding of Spanish, and lived in France so languages used to come quite naturally. They certainly don't anymore!

SignSay are really good if you're interested in learning, weekly lessons on Zoom and always happy to answer questions if you don't understand. They moved at a good pace and provide revision / homework to practice for level 1.

Deaf people often have a 'sign name' this might be their initials, or something else totally.

Hearing people who sign and are considered by the Deaf community to be part of the community (hearing children of Deaf parents, close friends, partners, interpreters) often have a sign name as well.

Makaton is not a language in the way that BSL or ASL are. It's a communication system. You can read more about the differences here: https://bda.org.uk/bda-statement-sign-systems/

Many Deaf people have accused those who invented Makaton (three hearing individuals, who actually created the name from the first letters of their own names!) of stealing from Deaf culture. Makaton gets a lot more funding than BSL, and because it's heavily promoted, and seen as easier to learn, is often seen as a better option.

Makaton is even copyrighted, and all use of it is controlled by the Makaton charity. It's only in very recent years that they've even acknowledged the d/Deaf community: https://makaton.org/TMC/TMC/About_Makaton/Makaton_BSL.aspx

By using such a small, limited number of signs, they've created something which works on a very basic level to allow carers to communicate in a very simplified way with those they care for, but which deprives Makaton users of any chance of developing more language skills, even though they may well be capable of doing so. If Deaf people had been invited to get involved, they could have introduced a simplified version of BSL instead (similar to what a young Deaf child might learn from their parents at an early stage of natural language acquisition).

There are also onoging issues about how it's assumed that there can and should be just one version of 'British Sign Language' in use across the UK - wiping out traditional Scots Sign Language, and all other regional variations, in favour of the signs developed by Deaf people in the SE of England/ London. Many in Scotland are fighting for proper language recognition, for properly trained interpreters who use |Scottish signs, and against what they see as cultural imperialism.

www.gov.uk/government/news/new-british-sign-language-gcse-heading-for-classrooms#:~:text=With%20the%20aim%20to%20have,of%20BSL%20in%20the%20UK.

I have two sign names. Miss Surname from work and first name based on a facial feature. (From my deaf sign language teacher. )

I want to take it up again.