QUESTION 0009:
The arrow doesn´t mean that the whole hand moves to the right side. Is that correct?

In German Sign Language "few" is signed not parallel to the floor but to the wall. So same writing - just without the gaps? is that correct? The hand stays - just changing from closed fist to 5 fingers hand. Could you show us examples?

ANSWER 0009:

Examples 0009, Part 1:

The arrow means traveling to the side. So Yes....the arrows do mean that the whole hand moves to the right side.

Examples 0009, Part 2:
These diagrams show the same kind of finger openings, with different directions of arm movements, and different palm facing. They are not signs - just examples of possible writing.
When I show you these diagrams, I am not teaching ASL...

Nor are my examples necessarily correct in ASL...the Part 1 examples were taken from our ASL dictionary with movement to the side while the hand opens. That is the way our Deaf staff members wrote the sign for FEW back in 1995, but I am sure there are many different versions for the same sign in ASL, in different parts of the country.

So even if you have a similar sign for FEW in Germany, and even if that sign originally came over from the USA from a Deaf person who had graduated from Gallaudet (or whatever the influence)...once the sign is used by Deaf people in another culture, it becomes uniquely theirs - with their direction of movement and their emphasis and their palm facing...so even
foreign signs change as they are used.

That is what happened in the English spoken language - we borrowed so many words from French and German and Scandinavian languages...but the words themselves changed and became uniquely English.

EXAMPLES 0009, Part 1:


EXAMPLES 0009, Part 2:




Questions? Write to:

Valerie Sutton

Sutton@SignWriting.org