The Sign Language

General informations

The mother tongue of deaf and severely hard of hearing people is the sign language. It consists of combined gestures of the arms, hands and fingers as well as mouth and body posture, facial expressions and is intended for a purely visual communication. Learning the sign language online is hardly possible because of a missing written form.

most important features of sign language:

The sign language is an independent language with gestures instead of words, which is adapted to the local vocabulary. Therefore, the sign languages of English-speaking countries differ from each other. Nevertheless, the international sign languages differ less from each other than the respective national languages.
The gestures correspond to words or phrases, so the number of gestures is very high. The learning of the sign language is therefore not possible with the alphabet system and there can be no TTF font for the sign language, as the sign is not comparable to letters. The sign language itself has no alphabet!
- The finger alphabet (used in sign language) was created independently of the sign language, so the term "sign alphabet" is incorrect. One can not spell gestures, but only the corresponding words of the spoken language (english).
  Fallacy:
  Learning the finger alphabet alone does not enable you to communicate in sign language!
  The finger alphabet is just a bridge between the sign language and the spoken language.

Gestures are movement sequences plus facial expressions and posture, which can only be displayed correctly in several graphics, in an animated graphic or in a video. Individual graphics are not usable. The online learning of sign language is difficult to practice due to the ambiguous representability and the enormous data volume for moving images.

Sign language has its own structure and grammar. Many information is expressed in gestures at the same time, which is why for the understanding of reading and writing in addition the spoken language (national language) must be learned as a written language. As an alternative there is the sign-writing to represent movements, attitudes and facial expressions:

Unfortunately, this sign-writing could not prevail so far, it is hardly used on Internet sites.

Learn the sign language online?

Sign language is a three-dimensional optical language in which many contents are expressed simultaneously. Same gestures with different facial expressions or postures make a different sense. Wrong hand position or direction of movement quickly leads to misunderstandings. When selecting offers, you should make sure that the videos, illustrations and the gestures show the hand position, movement and facial expressions.

My tip: Learn the sign language in a course with an original speaker!

Deaf people, depending on the onset of their disabilities, can use the sign language to a limited degree by tapping the movements (tactile gestures).

For the finger alphabet and for the hand alphabet, the respective national language as a foreign language is also learned, since the Latin letters form the basis.

Finger sign I love you - the identifiers of the deaf.

Further informations:

for the transcript of gestures the sign-writing based on the dancing script by Valerie Sutton

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Use glowing gloves (Leuchtende Handschuhe) to communicate in sign language in the dark

the communication card for deaf drivers (Communication assistance for police checks, carry in the car):

the small communication card for the wallet:

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