Sign language being different in every country instead of being universal is a nonsense and an opportunity wasted, amirite?

I mean you could say the same thing about verbal language, and the counterpoints for why culturally-specific verbal language extrapolates to sign language too. Language - regardless of how it's conveyed - is a vital component of feeling a sense of belonging to your culture.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Yep. Imagine thinking culture and locational context isn't important to the development of language. I see this attitude a lot and it really shows someone's ignorance of how sign languages work, usually from an oralist perspective. It's like saying "why doesn't everyone just speak English?" It also shows that OP thinks that sign languages literally directly translate existing languages word for word. They don't. Things like SEE (sign supported English) are similar to this, but BSL, ASL, etc have completely different grammar and semantic structures to English because they don't come *from* English. They're their own thing. Even when an English word might be mouthed (as in some BSL signs), the word order and usage is different to English. So for example, instead of "my name is Monkey", I'd sign "name me Monkey" or even "name me *sign name that's different to English*". I wouldn't mouth "what's your name?" I would mouth "your name what?". Not wrong, or incorrect. Just different. BSL and ASL users can't communicate by default. The alphabets are different, as are the majority of signs. Hell, sign dialects exist within countries and social classes even within the context of a specific language. TLDR; sign languages aren't mimed English/French/whatever. They're their own things with a rich cultural, social and political context that would prevent this from even being close to reality.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Why doesn't everyone just speak English? Would be nice.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

In all honesty, the English language is dumb in many ways. You could just ask why we all don't speak Chinese.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Chinese is all the more so. Try Latin

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Is Chinese Sign language as difficult as the spoken language to learn?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

As a foreign speaker, I think English is *currently* the best language in the world.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I'd say it's currently the most useful(depending on geographics obviously, but overall), but there are languages that are far easier to learn and speak. It is quite easy to write though.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

For me it's best for its creativity, flexibility, practicality, multi-cultural compatibility, and expressiveness. It's also fun and sounds beautiful. I have a speculation that a liberal political environment somehow actually affects these qualities in a language. I have no proof though. :P

by Anonymous 1 year ago

"Why don't we all just speak the same language" is what I was getting at, I don't really care whether it's English or not, we should just collectively make a decision (easier said than done, I understand that) and start teaching it in schools.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Yeah……and we should all switch to the metric system 😂

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Yeah the US doesn't start teaching other languages until HS

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Between on here and in my area (Alabama if you would believe it), I've heard some elementary and middle schools will teach Spanish and sometimes French to their class. It's usually fairly basic, but it's still something that I've been hearing about. Maybe some other languages, but Spanish and French are the ones I've been hearing about the most.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I learned English in French public school from the equivalent of American 6th grade. (They count grades the other direction there)

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Depends where you live I think. When I was a kid they started teaching Spanish French and German at grade 6. My daughter started learning Spanish in kindergarten.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Area dependant. We have immersion schools in my district for Maderin as well as Spanish. Greek school starts at age 8 in the orthodox center. The Hebrew school is immersion at 4th grade.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It'd be the best thing we've ever done. I'm already doing my part, and call out for everybody to join.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

>Imagine thinking culture and locational context isn't important to the development of language. You'd sound less bitchy if you just said, "Culture and locational context is important to the development of language."

by Anonymous 1 year ago

A sense of belonging to ones culture is not a good thing, its the root of racism. Universal understanding between all people would be really nice.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

That's not how languages work.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

You can't seriously believe that deaf people only came into existence after all the languages of the world were translated into each other, right?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

You realise there are plenty of words that still need to be spelt out, right? If it's all just one language, what alphabet are they going to use? Someone in China will write their names with letters unknown to a Russian, Italian or Iranian etc. But be expected to sign their name in an entirely different alphabet? That different languages have different sentence structures, so a German sign language user would still need to translate the words in a different order than an English user relaying the same sentence. So if you ignore the countless different alphabets, sentence structures, the fact the deaf people will still read/write in their native tongue... this is still complete pish.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It's impossible to create an universal language, be it sign or spoken

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Math has entered the chat

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Math isn't even close to being a language. It's great that it's a relatively universal set of codes but what it has to express is much much simpler and specific than actual language.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Calculus has entered the chat.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Lol, math was a better answer ;)

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Yeah, at best we can create an Earth language, it would be too hard to enforce it on extra-terrestrials.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Maybe not sign or spoken (so, you're right), but music is a universal "language" (in this context, I mean sheet music, although there's a case to be made for the sound, as well)-- people all over the world who read music can look at the same notation and know what it means. Well, I guess the notation I'm talking about is mostly a Western convention, but it'd be easy enough for people in Eastern countries to learn. But yeah, I get that actual word-language is different.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

"Easy to learn" doesn't mean it is universal. Western 12-tone notation cannot accurately convey the sounds made in, say, traditional Hindu music, or my highschool jazz class. If we tried to use any one notation for all music, we'd also lose a lot of meaning and thus a lot of historical and cultural significance. Music is also not a language. It can convey feelings, but those are dependant on the listener's cultural background matching the composer's (minor chords and dissonance are only "spooky" because we associate it with evil in Christian Majority cultures), and it can't communicate specific or concrete ideas like "this food is hot" so it's capacity for communication is very low.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Clearly you don't understand the differences in language Not everything has a direction translation from one language to the next

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Absolutely. For example, English doesn't have a word for the drinking version of "to feed" that applies to all drinks.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Betting my left earlobe that OP's home country doesn't speak one unified standard language with zero regional or cultural deviations... such "nonsense" and "wasted opportunity".

by Anonymous 1 year ago

~~Sign~~ language being different in every country instead of being universal is a nonsense and an opportunity wasted

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Everyone should speak English. It's a simple language that even Americans can (usually) understand.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Assentio, omnes latine loqui debent.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Vir sapit qui pauca loquitur

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Shakira Shakira amen

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Exorcizamus te omnis immundus spiritus

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Simple he says lol

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It's incredibly simple. To the point that it lacks several degrees of nuance. I'm saying this as someone who loves English and fluently speaks two other languages and is learning Japanese.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Devil: Yah yah oui oui see see. It's all a bunch of nonsense. Everyone speaks English anyhow, and if they don't they ought to! Elizabeth Hurley in Bedazzled.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Everyone should learn Esparanto! IT was made with simplicity in mind.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

You can say that about every single verbal language. Sign language is no different.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Do you really think languages are different only because the SOUNDS they make? Or could it be that grammar, syntax, connotation, and vocabulary can be different the world over?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Spoken like a true 'murican

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Look. People didn't all sit down around some weird international table and explicitly make up each sign language. They just developed naturally over time. Like spoken languages. There was never an opportunity for anything

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Wait till he finds out we all don't speak English 😬

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Why would it be universal? It's the same as with spoken language - The language is brought into the area from somewhere else (in the case of American Sign Language, it came from French Sign Language that was brought over to America in the early 19th Century. And as with spoken language, it developed its own dialect, and eventually became diverse enough to be called its own language. It's just how language works and evolves, whether it's spoken, written, or signed.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Tell me you only speak one language without telling me you only speak one language.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Never heard of the Tower of Babel, huh?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Moral of the story is that cooperation makes us our best self, but god hates competition

by Anonymous 1 year ago

God gave mankind free will, but exerts violence and torture when that free will is used in unapproved ways.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Your American-ism is showing

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Doesn't every country have a language? Wouldn't it make sense for every country to have its own sign language that works better with the native language of its land?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

You think people went out of their way to develop different sign languages for each country..? Sign language developed naturally. Just like verbal language.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Honestly that's a pretty dumb take the more you think about it. Sign language is something that developed over time independently in pretty much all countries, it's a form of language like any other, it's not really surprising that sign language isn't the same all across the world in the same way that verbal language isn't the same everywhere in the world

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Sometimes people don't understand each other even when they speak the same language. Sometimes people understand each other without a single word.  Nevertheless, expressing yourself is a basic necessity and is important for one's happiness in life.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

This is just stupid as the construction of different languages is varied depending on what it is based on (e.g. Latin) also some countries have masculine and feminine words which other countries don't. The order and construction of sentences is different so you would be teaching someone an entirely different language compared to what they know how to read or hear.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Hell english isn't even the same across single countries. Just look at the US or Canada. They've got pockets where the accents are so thick even other people who grew up in the country can barely understand them.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Yes, let's make American the standard instead. /s

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Because they are actual languages that living people use, they are bound to be different, and thats why stuff like Esperanza is absolutely stupid and ridiculous, language isnt just some set of rules, its a part of who people are, and it evolves and changes together with them

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Verbal language being different in every country is nonsense and an opportunity wasted

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Now do normal language then… Not a signer, but my understanding is most of it comes from an understanding of different languages' alphabets, so…

by Anonymous 1 year ago

There IS a universal sign language. It's called international sign language. Your ignorance is showing.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

"Problem: There are 14 languages." "This guy: Guys, we should have a universal language that everyone everywhere speaks. Just gimme a few in the lab, I can work this out." "Problem: There are 15 languages..."

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Bad take. Try learning about how cool different sign languages are. For example, in Japanese sign language people will sign sound effects around them like in a manga panel and I think that's great.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Shot in the dark: Someone saw Margot Robbie signing to the deaf fan and is now getting an abrupt education

by Anonymous 1 year ago

The reason why we haven't had a worldwide auxiliary language - verbal, written, or sign language - is because languages reflections of culture. And if you've spent significant time in different countries with different languages you know that communicating across culture is different from knowing that culture's words and grammar. There is a stage in learning second and third languages within the cultures where those languages are dominant when you understand each others words but not where each other is coming from. Languages have ways of embedding the things that make a given culture distinct - values, biases, social constructs, ways of thinking, etc. So even if we all used a true neutral common language that somehow didn't favor any existing one, there are gaps in how our minds perceive and express that are embedded by cultural factors.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Well... From my perspective, everyone not learning Esperanto as the main second language is a nonsense and a wasted opportunity. Yet I'm just a nobody, and no one cares about my opinion...

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Kind of like Spanish or Mandarin, right?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

What a horribly insensitive thing to say. Sign languages develop as other languages do, by people, with culture and community. How would you feel if someone said that your culture and community are nonsense because they're not the same as some other one out there?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Go forth and start the universal language language movement again my friend! You won't be the first and you you won't be the last! One day Esperanto will have more than a few million speakers

by Anonymous 1 year ago

If they know a lot of different sign language, does it make them multilingual?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Yes, if you know multiple languages then you are multilingual lol

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Most Deaf signers are bilingual anyway, in that they read the local written language and sign in their local signed language.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Multisignal

by Anonymous 1 year ago

If only the world have only one languages.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It's not different in every country. There are 41 countries including several in Africa and Asia that use American Sign Language as their official sign language.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Problem is the people using sign language can still read, so the hand gestures have to line up with the vocabulary and grammar structures used in the language.. while there are words that are universal, there are plenty of grammatically important words that are not or combine meanings of others, so it would be hard to line up the sign language for a universal standard that wouldn't simply be difficult when coupled with the local language.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I don't think you understand how sign languages work. They have their own grammar that can be very different from grammar used in any spoken language because it's realised spacially. It's actually super interesting. Your wording is a bit problematic, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you generally don't see a problem with (Deaf) people having the ability to read. What you refer to as "hand gestures" are called signs. Plus, you are entirely ignoring the cultural aspect of language. I'm so much in love with sign languages at the moment, I really hope more people educate themselves about them. I highly recommend it!

by Anonymous 1 year ago

The direct nature of sign language is used to eliminate the terrible twos in babies. Before they develop the fine motor skills required for verbal communication they can convey hunger and thirst through gestures.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

That is absolutely not true. Like at all. I really hope you aren't serious about this

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Verbal language being different in every country instead of being universal is a nonsense and an opportunity wasted

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I think the reason for this is abstract words, right? Sign languages resort to spelling/pronunciation to express abastract words, right?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

The reason for this is sign language is itself a language. Sign language isn't based on spoken language, and it evolves and diverges just as spoken or written language does. The world does not speak one unified language, and even in the same language, such as in English, there are regional and cultural deviations, just like sign language.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It would be if most of sign language didn't involve spelling out words that don't have a sign associated with them. Trying to use English alphabet signs to spell a Japanese word with no sign for it wouldn't translate whatsoever.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Y'all saying that is the same as language, and I agree. But it wouldn't be hard at all to create an universal language. After all the sign one isn't usually transmitted fathers to sons, in one moment someone had to invent each one of all the existing ones.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Sign language being different in countries where the main spoken language is the same is nonsense. Other than that, it's just par for the course.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

When I heard this, I was blown away. Why they do it?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Because languages evolve regionally, and many sign languages were created independently of each other. That's like asking why people don't speak one language universally, or use a universal writing system

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Typically, there is ASL (American Sign Language) and BSL (British Sign Language). Those are the standards.

by Anonymous 1 year ago