SWAG

420!

I used to work closely with ASL signers for Broadway musicals and I'm coming at this topic as a luddite, but they use a more universal signage rather than signing every word in a song. I don't know English signage anymore than I know African signage, but this looks very similar to what they did.

I studied American Sign Language for four years, and I can tell you that that isn't any sign language at all. It can't be; he repeats the same ~12 signs over and over in various combinations, regardless of what is being said. Also, there are no facial expressions at all, which are probably the most important part of most sign languages.

Basically, it is to any sign language what "CHING CHONG WING WONG!" is to Chinese.

Close, but not quite.

Give up on the idea of sign languages being in some kind of correspondence, one-to-one or otherwise, with spoken languages. Just think of them as independent languages.

(Speaking to gravelstudios, not takewithfood.)

One of the most important demonstrations of this is that ASL is drastically, completely different from British Sign Language.

@GF: Oh, I understand what you mean. I know several people who have studied sign language, and am well aware that ASL is really a completely different language from American English. What I was getting at was your other point, that different sign languages from different places are also completely different.

12 signs? Looked like closer to 3 to me.

Lydia Callis, I mean.