How a dictionary works and how to use it
A short sign dictionary will help you, dear reader, master the vocabulary of sign speech. This is a small dictionary with about 200 gestures. Why were these particular gestures selected? Such questions inevitably arise, especially when the volume of the dictionary is small. Our dictionary was created in this way. Since the dictionary is intended primarily for teachers of the deaf, teachers and educators from schools for the deaf participated in determining the composition of the dictionary. For several years, the author offered students of the Moscow State University of Philology, working in boarding schools for the deaf, a list of gestures - “candidates” for the dictionary. And he turned to them with a request: to leave on the list only the most necessary gestures for a teacher and educator, and cross out the rest. But you can add to the list if required. All gestures to which more than 50% of expert teachers objected were excluded from the initial list. Conversely, the dictionary included gestures suggested by experts if more than half of them thought it was appropriate.
The gestures included in the dictionary are mainly used in both Russian sign speech and calque sign speech. They are grouped by topic. Of course, the attribution of many gestures to one topic or another is largely arbitrary. The author here followed the tradition of compiling thematic dictionaries, and also sought to place in each group gestures that denote objects, actions, and signs, so that it would be more convenient to talk on a given topic. At the same time, gestures have continuous numbering. If you, the reader, need to remember, for example, how the gesture INTERFERE is performed, and you don’t know what thematic group it is in, you need to do this. At the end of the dictionary, all gestures (naturally, their verbal designations) are arranged in alphabetical order, and the ordinal index of the INTERFERE gesture will make it easy to find it in the dictionary.
The symbols in the pictures will help you more accurately understand and reproduce the structure of the gesture.
Wishing you success in learning the vocabulary of sign speech, the author expects from you, dear reader, suggestions for improving a short sign dictionary.
Legend
GREETINGS INTRODUCTION
1. Hello 2. Goodbye
3. Thank you 4. Sorry (those)
GREETINGS INTRODUCTION
5. Name 6. Profession
7. Specialty 8. Who
GREETINGS INTRODUCTION
9. What 10. Where
11. When 12. Where
GREETINGS INTRODUCTION
13. Where 14. Why
15. Why 16. Whose
17. Man 18. Man
19. Woman 20. Child
21. Family 22. Father
23. Mother 24. Son
25. Daughter 26. Grandmother
27. Grandfather 28. Brother
29. Sister 30. Live
31. Work 32. Respect
33. Take care 34. Help
35. Interfere 36. Friendship
37. Young 38. Old
HOUSE APARTMENT
39. City 40. Village
41. Street 42. House
HOUSE APARTMENT
43. Apartment 44. Room
45. Window 46. Kitchen, cooking
HOUSE APARTMENT
47. Lavatory 48. Table
49. Chair 50. Wardrobe
HOUSE APARTMENT
51. Bed 52. TV
53. VCR 54. Do
HOUSE APARTMENT
55. Watch 56. Wash
57. Invite 58. Light
HOUSE APARTMENT
59. Cozy 60. New
61. Clean 62. Dirty
63. School 64. Class
65. Bedroom 66. Dining room
67. Director 68. Teacher
69. Educator 70. Teach
71. Study 72. Computer
73. Meeting 74. Deaf
75. Hearing impaired 76. Dactylology
77. Sign language 78. Lead
79. Instruct 80. Execute
81. Praise 82. Scold
83. Punish 84. Check
85. Agree 86. Strict
87. Kind 88. Honest
89. Lesson 90. Headphones
91. Book 92. Notebook
93. Pencils 94. Telling
101. Know 102. Don’t know
103. Understand 104. Don’t understand
105. Repeat 106. Remember
107. Remember 108. Forget
109. Think 110. I can, I can
111. I can’t 112. Make a mistake
113. Good 114. Bad
115. Attentively 116. Correct
117. Ashamed 118. Angry, angry
119. Rude 120. Polite
121. Student
122. Diligent
ON A REST
123. Rest 124. Forest
125. River 126. Sea
ON A REST
127. Water 128. Sun
129. Moon 130. Rain
ON A REST
131. Snow 133. Day
132. Morning 134. Evening
ON A REST
135. Night 136. Summer
137. Autumn 138. Spring
ON A REST
139. Winter 140. Excursion, museum
141. Theater 142. Cinema
ON A REST
143. Stadium 144. Physical education
145. Competition 146. Participate
ON A REST
147. Win 148. Lose
149. Play 150. Walk
ON A REST
151. Dance 152. Want
153. Don't want 154. Love
ON A REST
155. Rejoice 156. Wait
157. Deceive 158. Cheerful
ON A REST
159. Agile 160. Strong
161. Weak 162. Easy
ON A REST
163. Difficult 164. Calm
165. White 166. Red
ON A REST
167. Black 168. Green
OUR COUNTRY
169. Homeland
170. State 171. Moscow
OUR COUNTRY
172. People 173. Revolution
174. Party 175. President
OUR COUNTRY
176. Struggle 177. Constitution
178. Elections, choose 179. Deputy
OUR COUNTRY
180. Chairman 181. Government
182. Translator 183. Glasnost
OUR COUNTRY
184. Democracy 185. War
186. World 187. Army
OUR COUNTRY
188. Disarmament
189. Treaty 190. Space
OUR COUNTRY
191. Protect 192. Politics
WHAT DO THESE GESTURES MEAN?
193, 194. Sign name (person's name in sign language)
195. Master of his craft 196. Master of his craft (option)
WHAT DO THESE GESTURES MEAN?
197. It doesn’t concern me 198. Make mistakes
199. Don’t catch me (at home, at work) 200. Amazing,
stunning
201. Same, identical 202. Calm down after
any disturbances
203. Exhausted 204. That's it
GESTURES OF SPOKEN SIGN LANGUAGE
205. Lose sight, forget 206. “Cats are scratching at the heart”
207. Don’t be afraid to say 208. Wait a little
something in the eyes
Index of gestures in alphabetical order
| army | do | ||
| grandmother | democracy | ||
| day | |||
| white | deputy | ||
| struggle | village | ||
| Brother | director | ||
| polite | Kind | ||
| agreement | |||
| right | rain | ||
| funny | house | ||
| spring | Goodbye | ||
| evening | daughter | ||
| video recorder | friendship | ||
| attentively | think | ||
| water | |||
| war | wait | ||
| teacher | woman | ||
| recall | sign language | ||
| elections, choose | live | ||
| fulfill | |||
| where is publicity deaf talk city state rude dirty walk dactylology grandpa | take care | ||
| forget | |||
| For what | |||
| protect | |||
| Hello | |||
| green | |||
| winter | |||
| angry, angry | |||
| know | |||
| play | |||
| excuse me (those) | |||
| Name |
| pencil | deceive | ||||
| apartment | window | ||||
| movie | autumn | ||||
| Class | rest | ||||
| book | father | ||||
| When | where | ||||
| room | make a mistake | ||||
| computer constitution space red bed who goes where kitchen, cook | |||||
| the consignment | |||||
| translator | |||||
| write | |||||
| Badly | |||||
| win | |||||
| repeat | |||||
| policy | |||||
| remember | |||||
| easily | to help | ||||
| forest | understand | ||||
| summer | entrust | ||||
| deft | Why | ||||
| moon | government | ||||
| be in love | chairman | ||||
| invite the president to check lose profession | |||||
| mother | |||||
| interfere | |||||
| world | |||||
| I can, I can | |||||
| young sea Moscow man wash | |||||
| work | |||||
| rejoice | |||||
| disarmament | |||||
| tell | |||||
| child revolution river draw Motherland scold | |||||
| punish | |||||
| people | |||||
| headphones | |||||
| dont know | |||||
| I can not | lead | ||||
| don't understand don't want a new night | |||||
| light | |||||
| family | |||||
| sister strong hearing impaired weak hear watch snow meeting agree sun competition bedroom thank you specialty calm stadium diligent old table dining room strict chair ashamed count son dance theater TV notebook difficult | restroom | ||||
| respect | |||||
| Street | |||||
| lesson | |||||
| morning | |||||
| participate | |||||
| teacher | |||||
| learn | |||||
| student | |||||
| study | |||||
| cosy | |||||
| physical education praise good to want | |||||
| whose man is black honest clean read that closet school excursion museum | |||||
In our classes we spent more and more time on the history of the creation of writing. But this time I wanted something different, more unusual and modern. So the idea came to mind to tell children about other languages. There are already plans:
Sign language;
- the language of spies;
- programming languages;
- Braille code.
Gestuno is the language of people with hearing impairments.
Deaf people communicate using gestures - quick hand movements accompanied by an animated facial expression. These gestures, like any other language, need to be learned. They quickly convey information to the interlocutor. Where hearing people need many words, for example: “Shall we cross the bridge?”, deaf people only need one gesture.
This capability is also used where hearing is impossible: underwater for divers or in space for astronauts working outside the spacecraft.
International alphabet of signs. Each language has its own system for designating letters or sounds.
Sign languages of the deaf vary from country to country. There are television programs in which the text is “translated” for the deaf. Then in the corner of the screen you can see the announcer silently gesturing, i.e. speaks sign language.
There are more than 13 million deaf and hard of hearing people in Russia. The birth of a child with hearing impairment in a family is a difficult test both for parents and for the child himself, who needs special learning tools and, most importantly, communication with peers and family. Fortunately, the Russian Society of the Deaf is actively working on this front. Thanks to the activities of its branches, people with hearing impairments unite and communicate with each other without feeling excluded from the social process.
There are also problems: a shortage of educational institutions that accept people with hearing impairments, a shortage of sign language interpreters and teaching aids that allow them to master sign language.
Russian sign language is an independent linguistic unit that is used for communication by people with hearing impairments.
Sign language does not consist only of a static figure shown by the hands - it also contains a dynamic component (the hands move in a certain way and are in a certain position relative to the face) and a facial component (the facial expression of the speaker illustrates the gesture). Also, when speaking in sign language, it is customary to “pronounce” words with your lips.
In addition to this, when communicating with people with hearing impairments, you should be extremely attentive to your posture and involuntary hand gestures - they can be misinterpreted.
The basis of sign language is the dactyl (finger) alphabet. Each letter of the Russian language corresponds to a specific gesture (see picture).
Knowledge of this alphabet will help you initially overcome the “language barrier” between you and a person with hearing impairment. But fingering (spelling) is rarely used by deaf people in everyday speech. Its main purpose is to pronounce proper names, as well as terms for which their own gesture has not yet been formed.
For most words in Russian sign language, there is a gesture that denotes the entire word. At the same time, I would like to note that almost all gestures are intuitive and very logical. For example:
“Write” - we seem to take a pen and write on the palm of our hand. “Count” - we begin to bend our fingers. “Grandfather” looks a lot like a beard, doesn’t it? Sometimes in gestures for complex concepts you are simply amazed at how precisely the essence of the subject is captured.
The structure of sign language is not at all complex. The word order corresponds to ordinary Russian sentences. For prepositions and conjunctions of one letter, their dactyl gesture (a letter from the alphabet) is used. Verbs are neither conjugated nor inflected. To indicate time, it is enough to give a marker word (Yesterday, Tomorrow, 2 days ago) or put the “was” gesture in front of the verb.
Like any other language, Russian sign language is very living, it changes all the time and varies significantly from region to region. Manuals and educational materials are updated at a snail's pace. Therefore, the recent publication of an ABC book for children with hearing impairments was a real event.
The basic gestures with which you can communicate with deaf people are quite basic:
The main difficulty is not even in mastering gestures, but in learning to “read” them from your hands. Gestures can be complex - they consist of several positions of the hand, following each other. And out of habit, it is difficult to separate the end of one gesture and the beginning of another. Therefore, learning to sign takes no less time than learning any foreign language, and maybe more.
We often see people with hearing impairments in the subway and on the street, in cafes. These are cheerful, beaming people, completely ordinary, just having different ways of communicating. Deafness does not prevent them from being happy - from having friends, a favorite job and a family. They can even sing and dance - yes, yes, people with hearing impairments can still hear music,
It all started again with the series. Although, to be completely precise, it comes from a beautiful interior. I was looking for series with interiors from Greg Grande, the same one who was the artist on .
This is how I came across the series “They were mixed up in the maternity hospital.”
It's about two girls who were mistakenly confused by doctors in the maternity hospital, and their families only found out about it when their daughters turned 16 years old. This is where the series begins, and then everything seems to be as usual: first love, conflicts with parents, arguments between the parents themselves, rivalry at school, breakups and reconciliations. Oh yes, all this in beautiful interiors.
The tricky part is that one of the main characters is deaf.
She became deaf when she was two years old and now wears hearing aids, goes to a school for the deaf and speaks sign language. And the plot is also strongly twisted around this.
I became seriously interested when I started watching interviews with actors and found out that some of the actors are actually deaf.
Actress Katie LeClair, who plays the main character, has Meniere's disease, the syndromes of which include hearing impairment and dizziness. The disease does not prevent her from working, but it helps to talk about this diagnosis in interviews and more people go to doctors to get checked.
While still at school, Katie learned sign language. Imagine, in the States you can easily choose sign language as a second language to study.
One of the episodes of the series was filmed entirely in sign language, not a single word is used in it. At the very beginning, the two main actresses appear and warn the audience that don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with your TV, but some scenes will be filmed in complete silence.
It's so cool! Talk about people with special needs not through short commercials or speeches trying to squeeze out a tear.
I watched the series and realized that disabled people are not only the people we imagine in wheelchairs.
Oh, this stereotype, firmly settled in the head thanks to the sign on car windows and on the asphalt of parking lots.
And so I ran into a deaf company at an intersection. I remembered that at the age of eight I myself suffered a serious otitis media with the risk of losing part of my hearing. The organizers of the event, who invited me as a speaker, asked me to speak louder, since there was a participant with a hearing aid in the hall.
It felt like the Universe was desperately hinting to me: “Would you like to learn sign language?”
I entered “sign language teaching” into the search and very quickly found it in St. Petersburg sign language school "Image". The school is located on the territory of the Herzen Pedagogical University, which means that at least twice a week I find myself in the very center of the city.
The university campus, which I need to completely cross - from the entrance with a strict security guard to building 20, our teacher Denis Aleksandrovich - “So, you’ll already learn these gestures at home yourself, now there’s no time to waste on this” (in fact, he’s very cool!) - all this brings me back to nostalgia for my student past.
Training twice a week for two months. This is an express course, the usual course lasts four months. The lesson lasts one and a half hours. What you need to learn something new and not get tired. And most importantly - no sports uniform in a bag, which I hate, no changing clothes and showering in open stalls. In general, one hundred thousand five hundred times better than sports.
There are many students in the group. One of my classmates born in 2000. Imagine! I thought they were still somewhere in kindergarten, but they are already in higher educational institutions. It's hard for me to believe this. But there are also adult students like me.
Most of my classmates ended up in class for the same reason as me. Interesting.
Only a few classes have passed, and I can already tell about myself, what my name is, what I do, how old I am and what year I was born. I can talk about the family and keep the conversation going: “Do you have a dog?” “No, I don’t have a dog, I have a cat.”
It's funny, but incredibly exciting.
Some interesting things about sign language
- Sign language is different in different countries, in our country it is Russian Sign Language (RSL). For some reason, this is terribly disappointing for everyone, they say, they could agree on one language and they would have super-power.
- Dactylology is a form of speech where each letter is expressed as a sign, but it is not a sign language. For example, you can edit a name or a foreign word for which there is no sign yet.
- Deaf people read lips, so it is important for them to see not only the hands that show gestures, but also the lips that pronounce words.
- Sign language has a different grammar and therefore uses a different word order. For example, a question word is always placed at the end of a sentence.
- Sign language is not a copy of a real language, but a full-fledged language with its own linguistic features, structure, and grammar. In sign language, the shape of the sign, its localization (the same gesture at the forehead and at the chest means different things), the nature of the movement and the non-manual component (facial expressions, turning the body, head) are important.
What I like most about my studies is that, perhaps for the first time, I am trying not to be an excellent student.
There is no need to write anything down in class - I took the notebook out of my bag after the first meeting. Yes, there is homework, but I don’t always do it. No grades or tests. I remember well what is taught in class and that’s enough for me.
Sign Language Interpreter Day was established in January 2003 on the initiative of the Central Board of the All-Russian Society of the Deaf. All-Russian public organization of disabled people “All-Russian Society of the Deaf” (VOG) is the largest and oldest public organization of people with hearing disabilities in Russia, formed back in 1926.
The purpose of Sign Language Interpreter Day is to draw public attention to the problems of the deaf. For comparison, if in Finland there are 300 sign language interpreters for every thousand deaf people, then in Russia there are only three. And over time, the number of sign language interpreters is only becoming smaller. At the same time, the work of a sign language interpreter is socially invaluable for the deaf community, because he is needed in court, police, tax inspectorate, for social protection, at a doctor's appointment and so on.
Typically, sign language interpreters are children of deaf parents who grew up in a “deaf” environment. You can get an education in this specialty at training centers in St. Petersburg and Moscow.
The language that sign language interpreters “speak” on screen or with their clients is sign language, and several million people around the world communicate in it. In some countries, it has long been officially recognized and is used to adapt news programs and various programs for people with hearing problems.
By the way, on October 24, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted in the first reading a bill raising the status of Russian sign language. Thanks to amendments to the laws “On Education” and “On Social Protection of Disabled People in the Russian Federation,” Russian sign language is now defined as the language of communication in the presence of hearing or speech impairments, including in the areas of oral use of the state language of the Russian Federation.
The special significance of this bill is that the official recognition of the status of the Russian sign language will make it possible to create the necessary conditions in educational institutions for the hearing impaired to receive education using sign language, to build a system of training and retraining of teachers on the basis of secondary and higher vocational educational institutions, according to the website VOGinfo.ru.
How to communicate with a person in the language of the deaf?
Sign language
First, one of the major misconceptions about sign languages is the idea that they depend on or are derived from verbal languages (audio and written) and that these languages were invented by hearing people. This is wrong. Secondly, fingerprinting of letters is often mistaken for sign languages - that is, when letters are “depicted” with hands.
The difference between dactylology and sign language, which is used by deaf people to communicate with each other, is that dactylology is used mainly to pronounce proper names, geographical names or specific terms, that is, each word is “showed” by letters by hand. At the same time, sign signs represent entire words, and in total there are more than 2000 gestures in the dictionary of the deaf. Showing some of them will not be difficult.
For example:
You can study sign language in more detail using the famous book G. L. Zaitseva“Sign speech. Dactylology".
It’s easier to get acquainted with the basics of dactylology - there is an established alphabet, and by spelling the word with signs, you can communicate with a deaf person. In Russian dactylology there are 33 dactyl signs, each of which corresponds to the outline of the corresponding letter.
Russian dactylic alphabet from the website deafnet.ru:
Note that a deaf or hard of hearing person will most likely understand what exactly you want to tell him without sign language, because for the most part they read lips very well.
As you know, learning a language always begins with theory. Therefore, in the first stages of learning the language of the deaf and mute, you will need to acquire self-instruction books. With their help, you will be able to study the necessary theoretical foundations that are needed to speak the language at a basic, that is, initial level. In the language of the deaf and dumb, the basics are the alphabet and the words themselves.
How to independently learn to speak the language of the deaf and mute?
If you want to learn to speak sign language, you need to have a minimum vocabulary. In the language of the deaf and dumb, almost any word can be expressed with a specific gesture. Learn the most common words people use in everyday life and learn how to pronounce simple phrases.
Special online dictionaries are perfect for this purpose: the announcer shows the gesture corresponding to the word and the correct articulation. Similar dictionaries can be found on sites dedicated to learning sign language. But you can also use book-size dictionaries. True, there you will only see gestures in pictures, and this is not such a visual way to learn words.
To speak the language of the deaf, you will also need to learn the fingerprint alphabet. It consists of 33 gestures, each of which corresponds to a specific letter of the alphabet. The dactylic alphabet is not often used in conversation, but you still need to know it: letter gestures are used when pronouncing new words for which there are no special gestures yet, as well as for proper names (first names, surnames, names of settlements, etc.).
Once you have mastered the theoretical part, that is, the deaf alphabet and the basic vocabulary, you will need to find a way to communicate with native speakers, with which you will train your speaking skills.
Where can you practice sign language?
It is important to understand that learning to speak the language of the deaf without practice is an impossible task. Only in the process of real communication can you master conversational skills at such a level that you can understand sign language well and be able to communicate in it.
So, where can you talk to native sign language speakers? First of all, these are all kinds of online resources: social networks, thematic forums and specialized sites whose audience is hard of hearing or deaf people. Modern means of communication will allow you to fully communicate with native speakers without leaving your home.
You can take a more complex, but at the same time more effective path. Find out if your city has special schools for the deaf or any other communities for the hard of hearing and deaf people. Of course, a hearing person will not be able to become a full member of such an organization. But this is possible if you learn the language of the deaf and dumb not for pleasure, but in order to communicate in it with someone close to you. You can also sign up as a volunteer at a boarding school for deaf children. There you will be completely immersed in the language environment, as you will be able to truly communicate closely with native sign language speakers. And at the same time do good deeds - as a rule, volunteers are always needed in such institutions.