Mailbag: Make it More Simple
Yipes! The last post was a while ago — hopefully you’ve been keeping up with us through the God Loves Deaf Kids app, because that’s where our focus has been. We set up a way for users to send us feedback, and here’s the question we got this morning:
“Can you make it more simple to learn sign language?”
Um, no. But we did provide an answer that’s hopefully a bit more helpful. Here it is:
Well, the short answer is no. If we could send you back in time and make you a baby in a signing household, it would be just as easy as learning your native language, because God designed us to learn our language and culture first. Then, we use our language to learn other things like math, science, history — and other languages.
Some people think sign language is just like Braille, Morse Code, or the Nautical alphabet — each of these are codes that represent letters. That’s not the case — it’s actually a whole language with syntax and grammar, and it can express multiple aspects of a thought at the same time. For example, we may say “three years old” while someone using American Sign Language will pull a 3 forward from their chin in one motion. It means the same thing, but what if it were expressed in English as “three from the chin”? Would we know that means “age is three”?
Just like spoken languages differ around the world, sign languages do too — there are over 400 different sign languages. China has 3 all by itself! That’s not counting how many communities have their unique phrases for things, as we use “soda,” “pop,” and “soda-pop” in different places to mean the same kind of drink.
Your best bet for learning sign language is to start with community classes that may be offered at a library, church, or school nearby. Then, find out where deaf people get together to visit, like deafcoffee.com, and learn from the community – it’s the next best thing to time travel 😉
Please do check out the God Loves Deaf Kids app, then write and tell us what you think!!