Sign Language
 

How often do you see people signing when you fly?
In all my 20 years of flying for business/pleasure, I've never seen anyone sign.

How often has another signer (is this the expression?) 'explained' things to you; or, to airline personnel?

I'm asking because when I was in college, I took a course and was able to sign. A local community college is offering ASL. Will sign language come back to me (like riding a bike) :D, or do you think I'll be starting from scratch?

I still remember a couple of signs, and one of them is not nice. :D

Recent thread on TravelBuzz concerning the first part of your post:
Have you seen a Deaf person on a plane before?

I guess you are talking about American Sign Language. (EDIT TO ADD - sorry! Just noticed you mentioned ASL)

Each country's is different. Even if I knew British Sign Language, I'm not very sure I'd be able to communicate very well this way with, say, DeafFlyer. How different are these two langauges?

They're very different. I'm still learning the British Sign Language. I know ASL plus Danish Sign Language, and pretty good at the International one, but not fluent.

To the OP: It won't all come back after year of no use. That's what I see from others in your situation. However, I would guess that learning it again would be easier than last time. Try to learn some good signs though.

Also, I see signing from others almost every time I travel. :D

We see people using ASL when we fly often. But, it is only when we are with our clients. There are not many Deaf business travelers, some, but not many. I am sure DeafFlyer comes in contact with them more often than we do since they are on the east coast, and here in the midwest our deaf people are the kind that only fly to Disney once every 4 years.

If you go back and start learning Sign Language again, it might be totally different from what you learned the first time. There are three different "sign languages" used here in the US, and while they are similar, parts of them are VERY different.

Actually, after flying over 700,000 miles... I've come across VERY few. I'm usually with a friend who signs so we're pretty obvious and that'd cause another deaf person to approach us.

The odds of coming across a deaf person on the same flight is almost similar to encountering a two-headed ballerina milking a cow in Miltonvale, Kansas. In simpler terms, 1 out of 4,000 according to my calculations.

Have seen very few signers while in transit but when I do I enjoy "eaveswatching" since I'm conversationally fluent and don't have any other interaction with the deaf. One odd story is just before they restricted gate access to non-ticketed pax I was at LAX when someone handed me a "Please help, I'm deaf" card soliciting money with the deaf alphabet on the back. I signed back "What's your name?" -- he had no idea what I signed, grabbed the card out of my hand and moved on to someone else. Reported him to the gate agent as boarding was about to commence but don't think they cared.

I will gladly report ANY one of these scums of earth to the police.. deaf or not, I don't care.

On the NY subways, when one of those card people try to hand me a card, I use the sign for 'work'. It's your 2nd and 3rd fingers hitting your other hands 2nd and 3rd finger. You should see the look I get. Priceless. :D

I invited one to sit down with me and have a fast food lunch at JFK once. He was a nice guy. I bought lunch rather than one of those cards though.

One of the "deaf" people gave us the same card at ORD, when we started signing to him, he didnt want to chat at all!!!
My wife and I interpret on several of the cruise lines and last month on our way out of MCI to MIA on NW, the plane wouldnt start, so as I was working to get us re-booked we heard a call go out over the PA if anyone is fluent in ASL please go to the check in counter. I did, and helped a NW agent re-book a deaf college kid her flight home. That was kind of fun:) interpreting on the ship is much more fun tho!

If you don't mind, I'd like to ask a question here about Sign Languages.

Seems to me this is the start of a golden era for non-verbal languages. Technology is beggining to allow all kinds of 'literature' and records to exist in sign language's 'pure' form.

I'm hoping that one day I'll be able to take up the dominant International Sign Language and develop my knowledge of it with 'books', perhaps even 'magazines' where contemporary 'writing' is signed on a screen.

Are deaf 'writers' (in any language) able to bypass the writing down of their ideas and instead express them freely in sign yet?

It seems like it should be such an exciting time for these languages, and logically, International Sign Language seems a perfect tool for non-blind hearing people and non-hearing people alike - especially with tonal languages (like those used in China) coming to the fore.

Biodegradable circuits and screens are just around the corner and signed signage and wayfinding seems like it will be viable imminently.

Or am I just showing my ignorance here? I can't help but wonder if ISL is being overlooked because many hearing people haven't fully realised how modern technology can revolutionise how it is used. It seems to have so much more potential than Esperanto.

Quick, grab that trusty camcorder.

If I can view films of Gallaudetians signing from the 1930's... am I missing something?

The "International Sign Language" is not dominant.

There are all kinds of ways technology is useful to those who sign. Videos have been in existance for a long time, as pointed out by Wiggums. We have video phones, and many other things now. The Bible is being translated to sign and put on DVD by multiple countries. Other things are being recorded. There is vlogs (video blogs), etc.... In a way you're right, this is a golden age for sign.

An index and a portable screen, perhaps? What I was implying was that compiling (and storing) this kind of material into an accessible, inexpensive and easy to use, search and retrieve format is recent. Not the technology to record it.

As I said, I'm probably being very naive, but what I'd really love to see is an International Sign Language come to the fore and help bridge the gulf between Eastern tonal languages and those that use pictographs/phonemic 'alphabets' and Western langauges and their Alphabets and Scripts (besides that between hearing and non-hearing).

Speaking for myself, learning an accepted ISL to an intemediary level seems far less daunting than taking on an Eastern tonal language and learning the characters separately. I imagine that many non-native speakers of English from the East might feel the same way and feel more confident with this than with English.

What makes it different to the 1930s is that signage at an airport or other venue/transport network can now be done in sign - not just in pictographs, alphabets, scripts etc....

Once countries open their eyes to the opportunities offered by an ISL, not just to deaf people but to hearing people too, it could conceivably take off in a way that Esperanto didn't. In short, with the Chinese economy growing I can't help but suspect that the time will come soon when English will be rejected as an International language. (And as part of the motivation for this rejection could be political, a more neutral language, such as a version of ISL, could survive this process).

It seems to me that the time is ripe for an ISL. The end result might be widespread use of a pidgin version of the SL for the majority of users (rather than as a fully rounded language) but I can imagine many travellers and those working in the tourist industries happy to adopt it as a tool.

Being able to pick up some vocabulary from the PTV of an airline seat would also help.

I apologise for this hacked version of what's in my mind. I understand that this subject is much richer and more complicated than what I've been able to convey. My knowledge of Sign Languages is limited (obviously!) and the little I do know is based around what I learnt about how Nicaraguan Sign Language was introduced and how it then evolved.

What you're describing, Laplap, is a dream that will probably never come true. Parents of deaf children often can't be bothered to learn sign language, how are we going to get people all over the world to learn one? I just can't see it happening, although it is a nice dream. :)

Deaf Flyer is right, most of the hearing parents of Deaf children have very little ASL skill. Most, not all. Often I have to interpret between a hearing parent that is like 60 years old, and their 30 year old Deaf son because the parnets never learned the language.

That really is terribly sad :(.


I can't help but suspect that there will be a backlash against English as a Lingua Franca in the not too distant future. The 'dream' I'm describing would merely be a pragmatic approach to solve mainly the problems of the hearing. It seems so natural to use your hands when attempting to communicate with someone who's language you don't share.

Humans are pretty selfish, I doubt a SL could take off for purely altruistic reasons (and It's awful folks won't learn to communicate in their child's language), but given a choice between learning basic Mandarin Chinese or basic ISL in order to get by, I can't help but wonder if an ISL could be given a proper chance, especially now/tomorrow when Sign Languages can be supported in so many different formats.

My mother never learned ASL... she didn't have to and I would very much prefer she didn't.

I still do not understand the importance of ASL and I wasn't raised using ASL despite profound deafness since birth. I am truly grateful for SEE (signing exact english) giving me the ability to read and I would rather see more schools embracing SEE. After all, the average reading grade of Gallaudet University students are in the 4th grade which is an utter disgrace!

Woah...what a groovy and awesome thread...kudos to the op ;)

As a Deaf individual, I speak Italiano and Deutsch fluently along with English as my primary language and American Sign Language as my secondary. I know the manual alphabet for British Sign Language which is also the manual alphabet for New Zealand & Australalia (where I learned).

Now...as for airplanes...I'm always caught traveling up front in the F cabin on US Airways, and soon to be Continental but it seems like it's all XJT to CLE for me then a 737-500 to BWI...if I'm going to DCA, it's another XJT flight...What gives but...

To answer the OP's question...it's indeed like riding a bicycle. The reason you don't see that many Deaf people on airplanes is because unfortunately they fly LCC like Southwest, JetBlue, or AirTran but...there are some who fly on legacy carriers...

In my lifetime I have only flown w/ other deaf people four times that was not in my "party" out of 2,000+ flights revenue and nonrevenue...Odd huh ;)

I usually do not identify myself as Hearing Impaired anywhere...I don't want the special treatment and I certainly do not play the deaf card unlike 75% of the Deaf world ;)

RJ

As someone who's hesistant about being a student at GU (atleast I am in the top 5 of my class) I wholeheartdly agree about your statement...I would prefer SEE with a combination of ASL (PSE) which is my primary communication w/ sign language...and I get grief over it all the time from the kindergarten reading kids ;) "You too much english no good" Im like huh...sorry I would rather sound smart than sound dumb ;)

There is an International Sign (not a language because it is mostly gestures).

We used it at the World Federation for the Deaf Congress in Madrid, Espana last July...all I can say is WOW and I want to learn more of it...It is so fascinating and at the same time...it's hard to describe the feeling I had but...it's so far out of the world to be learning an unique language as this!


By the way DHammer...that's not the sign for work that's "salt" I think ;)

Wow! A deaf person saying what my wife and I have been thinking for over 10 years!!!! Its very tough to go and interpret for people that I KNOW are just using their deafness to get away with bad behavior! I understand the difference between the deaf and hearing cultures, but that does not mean its ok to be a complete jerk to everyone just because you are deaf.

Maybe it's because I was raised in the Hearing world, treated as an equal. I do admit communication is always an issue but I was never treated any special...My HS Baseball + Football coaches never treated me any different...they yelled the same ;)

I'm personally sick and tired of when people play that card. They will get an "eyeful" from me ;) then take that left turn into First Class as they sit in Economy.

I frown even on deaf people trying that just to get a discount to get into museums.

Nauseating!

Great Thread!!!

I am new here but definitely not new to flying. My father worked for the airlines so I grew up on a plane.

I am also an Interpreter and fluent in ASL, PSE and SEE. I work post-secondary so I deal mostly with PSE.

Out of all my years of flying, there was only one flight where the majority of the plane were Deaf. I was on my way to an interpreter convention in San Antonio and the flight was connecting from DFW.

A lot of the airplanes now have the little TV that comes down and I notice at least the safety demonstration is captioned.

My wish is that all airports or airplanes could have a "ticker tape" type box at each gate that has the announcements that roll across the screen. I am not sure what these boxes are called but you see them everywhere except airports. Most of them are a LED type format and in red letters.

Great to see Deaf/deaf people on the boards!!!! Howdy to my fellow terps!

I'm only hearing impaired, with ridiculously expensive hearing aids. Fortunately I had an employer with an insurance plan that covered them. I no longer do. Eh.

I'm an ASL student at MCC in Mesa, AZ. I find languages fascinating in general, I travel a lot on personal trips. I've often wondered if there'd ever be a market for translators between different national sign languages, or for ASL tour guides leading deaf Americans overseas. Even if so, that's a bit off in the distance as I'm only completing Sign Language 101 right now. :)

Pity there's not a way we can easily sign here - I would love the repetitive practice with another patient signer. There aren't a lot of regular options where I live.

Agreed

:(......

So, I don't often see Deaf people traveling at airports... but here's my reasoning.
Most of the time, people travel by themselves on an airplane. Why would a Deaf person be signing to themselves!?!?!?
Secondly, as someone mentioned before, people are texting a lot now-a-days. Even if flight personal was assisting a deaf person, they'd probably text on the device, or show them pictures. OR, make sure they saw their safety video in CC, etc.

As for your last question, depending on how many years you took the language, and how often you used it, etc it will either come back no problem, or you will definitely have brush up on some signing videos :)

I would really really love to learn sign language. I have considered taking classes or watching videos but I am afraid if I learned it I would lose it quickly as I really have no one to practice it with. Any suggestions?

I'm a bit biased but it's quite easier to learn than any of the romantic languages :) There's some Deaf Coffee Chats for ASL Students to go to in local communities so the best place to start at would be the Community College and go from there... The pieces will fall in place I promise you.

I've flown multiple flights a year to China in the last five years. Never seen anyone sign on any of those flights or for that matter in China.

I'm Deaf, but only once have I ever flown on a flight where another deaf person, not traveling with me, was on the plane. That's as far as I know, because I didn't go up and down the aisles checking to see if there were any. Did you do that?

NZSL (New Zealand Sign Language) user here. One of the reasons why you might not see many signing on planes is that people often travel alone. Whenever I travel alone I tend to not sign much (for hopefully obvious reasons!). I do sign "thank you", "water please", etc when I need to with FAs just to raise awareness that they have Deaf passengers.

When travelling on QF I have found their FA to be pretty good at responding back to me with a "thank you" sign. I've been told they send their FA to Deaf Awareness courses and this shows. Sadly I don't see the same on NZ/JQ which I travel on more often -- perhaps they don't send their FAs to Deaf Awareness courses?

Obviously when travelling in a group of other SL users I will sign a lot! Doesn't happen very often though.

Interesting to read the debate between ASL and SSE here. I grew up with TC (the Australian version of SSE) and while I agree it is good for English literacy it does not always translate to better comprehension of what is being said. Basically TC/SSE allows a better understanding of English but not really anything else.

While I was growing up in school in the '90's I witnessed the transition in education to teaching NZSL (which like BSL/ASL in terms of the fact it is its own language) and many of my classmates finally started to understand maths, science, social studies, etc because they stopped focusing on English and just focusing on acquiring knowledge from the subject they were learning.

I was fortunate firstly to have acquired TC, but I feel much more fortunate to have NZSL later on as it is a proper sign language. TC/SSE is just a code for English and IMHO should only be used for teaching/learning English. ASL/BSL/NZSL/etc is more appropriate for almost everything else.

- James

The best way to see other deaf people is to fly to/from DC or Rochester, NY when Gallaudet and RIT starts their breaks/classes start up. I just had a flight with 4 other deaf people when returning home from school! Two were deliberately flying together as they lived near to each other but the rest of us didn't know. I don't walk up the aisle to check for deaf people, I typically see them at the gate area or even at the baggage claim sometimes!

Now about International Sign Language- it's rather rude to see hearing people push that idea so hard as sign languages are not something new, they have rich and storied histories in their countries. I wouldn't give up ASL to learn some sort of ISL to fulfill the fantasies of ignorant hearing people. Why do hearing people think I should be able to communicate with deaf people in any country I go to when the same is not true for spoken languages? Just look at Esperanto. It failed. ISL will not take off too because the deaf people do NOT want or need one. Please stop pushing this idea on us.

I recently had a flight where the FA insisted on trying to mime/randomly sign out the safety speech. She didn't even know a sign, she just made it up all. It was absurd and kind of offensive. I vastly prefer watching the safety video with captions or being handed a transcript of the speech (it's only happened once to me which is a shame because it's pretty much the best way if there's no CC). I found Continental to be the best airline to fly on in regards of accommodation for the deaf which is why I was sad when they merged with UA as UA doesn't really try to make any accommodations.

Actually, International Sign Language is a Deaf invention, not hearing. What was described earlier is a little bit different from that. I agree with you that I would not give up ASL for either the Deaf invented version, nor for the hearing one being discussed earlier in this thread. The Deaf version was invented to help communication, not to replace any countries original language.

International sign language is roughly gestural and greatly simplified so that everybody can understand. I regularly attend deaf events in Europe and I also know DGS (German Sign Language).

My apologies for being gone so long but I'm now back in the good old U.S.A.

Welcome back!

Welcome back Wiggums!

I know BSL, Auslan, and NZSL in addition to International Sign Language (WFD) and of course our native American Sign Language.

There's a Japanese Sign Language, and I've seen it portrayed in dramas and also used in a sign-interpreted news program on NHK's Educational Channel. On one of my visits to Japan, I saw a TV variety show in which the singer signed the lyrics of a song while singing them.