Sign Languages Trivia

1. It is not known exactly how many Deaf signers use British Sign Language as their first language, but it is estimated to be:

From Quiz Sign of the Times

Answer: Over 100,000

At least 140,000 people use BSL as their first language, with several more thousands using it as their second or third language. Many hearing people also know some BSL - they might have Deaf friends or family, or be learning it in school or college. Recent figures from the British Deaf Association suggest that on any day, up to 250,000 people use some BSL during conversation.

From Quiz Sign Me Up: American Sign Language

Answer: 1,000

For '1,000' or larger numbers, the dominant hand taps the palm of the non-dominant hand once for each comma. For example, for '2,000,000', sign '2', then tap twice. Hundreds are indicated by following the number with the 'C' handshape.

From Quiz A Touch of Class: A Little Lesson in Braille

Answer: French

Louis Braille was born in Coupvray, France, in 1809. He was blinded at age three, in an accident in his father's workshop. He eventually attended the only school for the blind in France, where he developed the Braille code. Not only was it less cumbersome than the embossed print letters used in the books in those days, but he and his fellow students were able to write. In the truest sense, Braille made blind people literate.

From Quiz Can You Feel Me Now?

Answer: w

The French alphabet in Louis Braille's time did not included the letter w.

From Quiz Hands Down! American Sign Language

Answer: Written form of ASL

ASL has no true written form BUT Gloss is used for things such as court hearings, teaching ASL, etc.

From Quiz Sign Languages

Answer: very different

Although Britain and the US share a spoken language, their sign languages have grown up separately. American Sign Language (ASL), also used in much of Canada, is heavily influenced by French Sign Language. British Sign Language (BSL) is similar to Australian Sign Language (AusLan).

From Quiz Knowing Sign Language is Pretty "Handy"

Answer: Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet

Gallaudet was a minister in Connecticut whose neighbor Mason Fitch Cogswell had a deaf daughter named Alice. He attempted to teach her but wasn't making much headway, so he decided to go to Europe where the practice and theories of educating deaf people had taken some hold. Learning from innovative educators of the deaf such as Abbe Sicard, Jean Misseau and Laurent Clerc, Gallaudet returned to America accompanied by Clerc. They established the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut in 1817.

From Quiz Read My Lips!

Answer: All three of these

While this movement is very easy to see, it can present some problems, as the three sounds are almost identical. If you watch yourself making these sounds in the mirror, and look very carefully, you might see small differences, but these differences disappear in a real-life situation where you are watching other people speak. Thus "meat", "beat", and "peat" will look the same in speech, as will "mat", "bat" and "pat". You'll need to use context to tell them apart.

From Quiz Sign of the Times

Answer: They thought it might be detrimental to their speech and lipreading skills

The signing method of communication was largely considered to be nothing more than nonsensical pantomimes and random gestures. However, in 1890, The British Deaf and Dumb Association (now The British Deaf Association) was founded, leading to sign language becoming a more credible method of communication.

From Quiz Braille Basics

Answer: It is brailled or embossed.

Braille is embossed. The reading surface contains raised dots which are read by running the fingertips over them. When using a personal writing device such as a slate & stylus or a brailler (a manual or electric machine analogous to a typewriter), a person is said to be brailling. The analog of printing, as with a computer peripheral or in the production of books, is embossing.

From Quiz Hands Up for Coffee

Answer: British

The acronym stands for 'British, Australian and New Zealand Sign Language'. All three were developed from a deaf sign language used in Britain in the 1800s. Some common elements remain in all three languages, though each now has regional variations.

From Quiz A Touch of Class: A Little Lesson in Braille

Answer: 6

The six dots are arranged in a rectangle, three dots high, and two dots wide. They are numbered one, two and three, going down the left, and four, five and six, going down the right. This makes communicating with a student much easier. You can see a braille alphabet by going to: www.afb.org/braillebug/braille_print

From Quiz Hands Down! American Sign Language

Answer: French Sign Language

When Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet wanted to bring a teacher of the deaf to America, he traveled to France where he met a man named Laurent Clerc, a top educator in French Sign Language. Gallaudet brought Clerc back to America with him to help teach a little girl named Alice Cogswell, whose deafness prompted Gallaudet to help her communicate.

From Quiz Sign of the Times

Answer: 2003

This recognition was an important victory for BSL and its Deaf users. It meant that money could be invested in the promotion of Deaf rights and training more BSL tutors and BSL-English interpreters. Another landmark came in 2009 when the UK signed the UN Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which put sign language on a par with spoken languages.

From Quiz Hands Up for Coffee

Answer: Scotland

John Carmichael was an engraver who arrived from Edinburgh and settled in Sydney in 1825. He was apparently a great story-teller, and enthralled the deaf community with his tales.

From Quiz Sign Me Up: American Sign Language

Answer: In front of you is future; behind you is past.

Farther in front is farther in the future, and farther to the rear is farther in the past. The present is close to the body.

From Quiz A Touch of Class: A Little Lesson in Braille

Answer: Interpoint Braille

Interpoint reduces the thickness of a book by half. Interpoint is done on an electronic embosser which staggers the dots on the two sides of the page so that they don't "get in the way" of each other. I will admit to having a good deal of fun teaching sighted people about braille, and using a page in interpoint braille. If you use your eyes to read it, you can't tell which side of the page the dots are on.

From Quiz Can You Feel Me Now?

Answer: because uncontracted Braille would cause Braille books to be very cumbersome

There are over 300 different contractions used in Braille. The use of these contractions has greatly reduced the amount of paper and space required to produce Braille material.

From Quiz Knowing Sign Language is Pretty "Handy"

Answer: The alphabet can be signed with one hand in ASL, but the German and British sign language uses two hands for the alphabet

Fingerspelling as it is called requires only one hand to represent the letters of the alphabet in ASL. Different English-speaking countries however have different fingerspells for the same alphabet. Using two-hands for signing the alphabet is used in Australia, New Zealand Great Britain, and some other countries. Despite having the same manual alphabet as the Germans, ASL and German sign language are very different.

From Quiz Read My Lips!

Answer: Front teeth touch the bottom lip

F and V are clearly visible, and while the two sounds are mostly indistinguishable on the mouth, they don't present the kind of problems that come from B, P and M. There are very few words in English where it really matters whether you saw an F or a V. It makes a big difference whether you are saying "meet" or "beat" in the sentence "I'm going to ____ my children later"! However, no one is likely to be too confused between "very" and "ferry" when you say "I'm catching the _____ to the mainland at eight".

From Quiz Hands Up for Coffee

Answer: Languages Other Than English

Because Australia is one of the most multicultural countries in the world, with a vast number of languages spoken, most schools and universities run LOTE programs. Both indigenous and Auslan are considered LOTE and are available for students to learn. Many languages are also taught in community centres, and for children of immigrant families, Saturday or evening cultural classes, which include native language acquisition, are held.

From Quiz Sign Me Up: American Sign Language

Answer: Topic - Comment

The topic is indicated by raising the chin and eyebrows.

From Quiz Knowing Sign Language is Pretty "Handy"

Answer: Elephant's shoes

Contrary to dramatic television shows with scenes showing the good guys (or bad guys) using a deaf person to lip read from across the room to obtain information, the truth is about 80% of lip reading is guess work. Come to think of it, comedies exploit this myth also now I think of it (famous deaf actress Marlee Matlin playing Laura in that 1993 episode of "Seinfeld" called "The Lip Reader")

From Quiz Sign of the Times

Answer: A-E-I-O-U are located on the fingertips of the passive hand

When conversing, Deaf people do not usually look down at each other's hands but concentrate more on eyes and mouth shapes - in the majority of cases, signers will also mouth words as they're signing. Fingerspelling is read using peripheral vision.

From Quiz Braille Basics

Answer: Six dots in two columns: Dot 1 upper left, Dot 2 below that and Dot 3 below that. Dot 4 upper right, dot 5 below that, and dot 6 below that.

Though it sometimes doesn't seem so to a beginner, the braille code has its own logic. You can't just stick random dots on a page and call them braille. Rather, for the alphabet at least, there is a simple, elegant pattern to how the signs are formed.

From Quiz Sign Here

Answer: Girl

This sign comes from the days when women wore bonnets every time they left the house - the bonnet strings would run (roughly) from ear to chin. If her new bundle of joy had been a boy, your cousin would have pantomimed a baseball cap's bill.

From Quiz Can You Feel Me Now?

Answer: the

These major whole word signs can stand for the word themselves or they can also be part of other words. For example, in the word "forget", the "for" sign can be used followed by the letters "g", "e" and "t". In the word "Wanda", you would Braille "W", then "and" sign followed by "a". These major whole word signs are also called super contractions because they are preferred over other contractions in Braille.

From Quiz Hands Down! American Sign Language

Answer: Signed Exact English

Not many deaf people use Signed Exact English anymore. SEE is a signed code for English rather than a whole language. An example of the difference between the two is this: TREE in ASL is simply repeated and stressed, to make it plural is like wiggling your hand a lot whereas in SEE, TREE is the same ASL sign BUT it uses a fingerspelled "S" to make plural instead of shaking your hand. Subtle differences but also in SEE some words such as THE, IS, AN and AM are used and in ASL they are not.

From Quiz Sign Languages

Answer: oralism

In the middle of the 20th century, it was common for deaf and hard-of-hearing children to be taught spoken languages only. Campaigning by some Deaf people has highlighted the value of sign languages, but pressure to integrate deaf children into mainstream schooling can lead to an effectively oralist approach.

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