
What's Deoxyribonucleotide in Sign Language? - benryon
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-49057331
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abruzzi
I would wonder, given that many scientific words--especially in chemistry--are
a jumble of root plus prefixes and suffixes (de-oxy-ribo-nucleo-tide), and
there are a LOT of these chemistry words, would it be productive to treat the
signs the same way. So instead of a single sign for deoxyribonucleotide, you
break it into a sort of compound sign that is built up from similar meaning
sub parts? I know very little about ASL or BSL to know how much this sort of
word construction already happens.

~~~
_nalply
I am Deaf myself and my Signed Language (Swiss German Sign Language) is
special, so I don't know whether my experience is generalizable.

It is very possible to agree upon a language with your interpreters and
colleagues who are also Deaf. So you create something not official but what
works for you and your situation.

This approach often works fine for me: try to convey the meaning into movement
and dynamics. Signed Languages are very powerful and are conceptually more
capable to express something at its core instead giving it a name. Add to this
"core" sign a few modifiers like fingerspell the first or the first few
letters, and what works very well in Swiss German Sign Language, mouthing, i.
e. move the mouth as if you would verbalize but don't make a sound. These
mouthings are linguistically known as "mouth pictures". Exactly as loan words,
and often the loaned words are mangled horribly but they are just an expedient
for communication.

~~~
mabbo
I studied American Sign Language for 3 years in University (more of a drinking
club with credits than anything else). We were taught that a lot of signed
language is like this- that signs can be invented as needed and agreed upon
and that's just a normal part of what makes Signed languages cool.

As a result, it was expected that if we traveled a few hundred km in any
direction, the local signs might be dramatically different than the ones we're
used to, and so we'd better learn to interpret context and ask what specific
words meant.

~~~
norgie
This is a feature of all natural languages, not just signed ones. We commonly
refer to these words or phrase as idioms, slang, jargon, etc.

~~~
_nalply
Signed Languages are different. It's hard for people who don't talk a Signed
Language to understand because of the Blub Paradox.

The word "Blub Paradox" in itself is a good example of what Deaf people do if
they encounter concepts they need to communicate. They make up words. Signed
Languages are very productive in making up words.

So it is not just an idiom, slang or jargon, it is more than that.

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lordnacho
This is a problem in just about every language that isn't English. Since the
language of science is English, either you borrow the English word (which
interestingly is likely borrowed from Latin) or you know a local word that.

But at some stage your local vocabulary runs out, and you wonder whether you
should just use English for everything in that domain to make it consistent.

I've run into this problem with a load of languages, I just don't know the
right word for things like DNA or vector calculus, or it sounds wrong.

~~~
x3n0ph3n3
How do you "borrow" spoken words into sign language? You can't, really --
which is why he has to invent hand gestures.

~~~
OJFord
I suppose the equivalent is (what I now know is called) finger spelling: an
unnatural 'sounding' word that breaks the flow, but it's [spelling is] taken
from a language where it already exists.

~~~
x3n0ph3n3
See how well spelling out words rather than pronouncing them works for you in
conversation. This really _is_ a unique problem to adopting spoken words into
a non-vocal language.

~~~
_nalply
Deaf myself: usually we start with fingerspelling. If we discover it being
cumbersome we invent something. Borrowing is different but not impossible.

~~~
zapzupnz
Not to mention the new signs can involve the hand shapes from, say, the first
letter of the borrowed English word. Say the word starts with a D, and
everybody recognises the fingerspelt word just from the D alone (in context),
then the new sign might use the hand shape for D but give it a specific
action.

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_nalply
I am Deaf myself and I studied Bachelor of Law at the Swiss Distance Learning
University ([https://distanceuniversity.ch/](https://distanceuniversity.ch/)).
For the mandatory attendances (six Saturdays a year in Fribourg) I hired two
Signed Language interpreters.

Ask me anything.

~~~
sombremesa
Why did you capitalize "Deaf"?

~~~
_nalply
Because there is a difference between "deaf" and "Deaf".

The capitalized word is meant to highlight the cultural and social parts of
living in a community with other Deaf people. You also would not write
American in the lower case.

Being "deaf" is about the handicap, about the loss of hearing and other
problems.

Being "Deaf" is about being a member of a community, about the keen visual
sense, about communicating in a Signed Language, and so on.

~~~
jbverschoor
So there are Geeks, Nerds, Programmers now too?

Why not capitalize every Noun like in German

~~~
scrollaway
A question was asked, a response was given. Why do you need to be snarky with
the GP?

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pushcx
On this side of the pond, the University of Washington has a large and growing
ASL STEM dictionary:
[https://aslstem.cs.washington.edu/](https://aslstem.cs.washington.edu/)

I don't know how widely accepted these signs are and it has a serious problem
with spambots, but it was useful when I was tutoring a Deaf friend in
programming.

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FabHK
Does the article (well, the video) actually demonstrate the new sign for
deoxyribonucleotide or DNA or so? I didn't catch it (not that I understand
sign language).

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JoshuaEddy
"Stem Cell" at 1:55 in the video

~~~
_nalply
Yes this is a beautiful word.

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Nightshaxx
This dude is awesome. Props to him for tackling a challenging situation head
on. I wish for him the best!

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AcerbicZero
Why even use sign language, when you could just do real-time speech to text,
and just _read_ what is being said? Is that actually less efficient than
signing?

Edit: So rather than being entirely uneducated on this topic, I'm googling it.
There seems to be some disagreement between which is better, and it also
appears to be a somewhat sensitive topic (according to non-deaf people who are
writing articles about deaf people on the internet. So take that for what its
worth)

~~~
WorldMaker
I'm not deaf, I only studied ASL in HS and it included some useful lessons on
Capital-D Deaf Culture. So I'm not much more of an expert on the subject by
any means, but I love language studies.

Efficiency is only one spectrum in play. Sign languages are languages distinct
and evolutionarily unique from spoken languages. Early attempts such as
"Signed English" attempted to minimize the distinction between the spoken
language and signed language, but living languages evolve to fit their medium,
and sign languages evolved some truly unique grammars and even their own words
that don't always reflect relatives in nearby spoken languages.

Even though sign languages for the most part haven't adopted their own written
languages that better reflect their grammar and uniqueness (and there's really
interesting arguments on both sides whether they should), there's an
increasing difference between a sign language and its "written language
neighbor". One particularly fun example is that American Sign Language (ASL)
is much closer to French Sign Language (FSL) on the language family tree than
ASL is to British Sign Language (BSL). Despite what you might presume from the
spoken language "neighborhoods" of the sign languages, an ASL signer is going
to have an easier conversation with an FSL signer than a BSL signer.

Which leads to the fact that there are even native speakers whose first and
primary language in their lives is a sign language, and with a culture to
match (Capital-D Deaf Culture). Written English will always be a foreign
language to them, even if it is a second language they have a lot of reason to
study from early in life.

So it's a quality of life question as much as or more than just an efficiency
question. (Just as with most language issues, really. We could probably find a
more efficient use of language for English medical/scientific jargon than
smashing lots of random bits of Latin and Greek together. But we have what we
have for a lot of familiarity and cultural reasons.)

~~~
AcerbicZero
Wow there is so much more there than I realized at first. I probably should
have realized that any communication system would have layers, and when you're
restricted to a subset of visual signals there would be all sorts of
intricacies. The dual-language comment also lines up with a lot of what I've
read this morning on the topic, in that many folks who use ASL full time have
commented that written English can almost feel like a second language to them.

Seriously though, thank you very much for sharing your perspective on this.
It's awesome to ask a question (in an area where I have no domain knowledge)
and get such a high quality responses.

~~~
fao_
> Wow there is so much more there than I realized at first.

The eternal cry of the hackernewser upon finding that other subjects as well
as computer science exist.

(EDIT: To clarify, I'm not intending to dunk on the parent poster
specifically, rather call out how many people in this community and in the
hacker community continually ignore the fact that, not only do _other subjects
exist_ , but they also have a _lot of knowledge_ that _isn 't necessarily
self-evident_, and the issue has _different constraints and priorities_. A lot
of the posts on here feel like nobody learned anything from the idiots that
set up Metamed).

~~~
AcerbicZero
Lol to be fair, I don't know much about computer science either. Also, n-gate
does a really good job of calling out the perception you're expanding on in
your edit, and is usually fairly funny to boot.

As a bonus, the only thing that seems to be more common than someone on HN
appearing out of touch with reality, is someone on HN trying to bring up how
often HN appears out of touch. Be the change buddy :)

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NikolaeVarius
This comment is made in full good faith.

I get that being clear/accurate/specific is important, but isn't this what
slang/shortnames are used for?

Even in the most conservative engineering positions I've had, slang was used
alot, since there are tons of things that have overly
long/descriptive/technical terms which no one wants to use in everyday
language/communication. The only time you would use them would be in
documentation, and even then many times there is a glossary and the shortname
would be used.

~~~
shawxe
But isn't that exactly what he's doing by inventing these signs--creating
shorter names so that it isn't necessary to finger spell everything out
explicitly?

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RosanaAnaDana
>Frustrated at the lack of complex scientific terms in British Sign Language
(BSL) during classes, Liam decided to take matters into his own hands.

::Trombone_sounds.mpg::

