- published: 13 Oct 2012
- views: 3487028
A sign language (also signed language) is a language which chiefly uses manual communication and body language to convey meaning, as opposed to acoustically conveyed sound patterns. This can involve simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's thoughts. They share many similarities with spoken languages (sometimes called "oral languages", which depend primarily on sound), which is why linguists consider both to be natural languages, but there are also some significant differences between signed and spoken languages.
Wherever communities of deaf people exist, sign languages have been developed. Signing is not only used by the deaf, it is also used by people who can hear, but cannot physically speak. While they use space for grammar in a way that spoken languages do not, sign languages show the same linguistic properties and use the same language faculty as do spoken languages. Hundreds of sign languages are in use around the world and are at the cores of local deaf cultures. Some sign languages have obtained some form of legal recognition, while others have no status at all.
by Bob Dylan
You speak to me in sign language,
As I'm eating a sandwich in a small cafe
At a quarter to three.
But I can't respond to your sign language.
You're taking advantage, bringing me down.
Can't you make any sound?
'Twas there by the bakery, surrounded by fakery.
This is my story, still I'm still there.
Does she know I still care?
Link Wray was playing on a jukebox, I was paying
For the words I was saying, so misunderstood.
He didn't do me no good.
First Verse
Second Verse