So Rachael is studying American Sign Language this year, and part of her course requirements is that she has to attend a certain number of Deaf culture events throughout the semester. Because I love my wife (and I’m a linguophile) I’ve been going with her to these events, which was really fun at first, because I’ve not taken a single class of ASL and so the only signs I know are the ones that I’ve been able to pick up while Rachael’s doing her homework (I’m almost fluent at signing, “My name is Jason,” but I always trip up on my finger spelling). This means that I’d go to these events with Rachael and sit in a small group with a mixture of ASL students and deaf people and get as far as signing my name and then I’d have to just stop and sit while everyone else carries on with their conversation.
A chart that shows all the letters of the ASL fingerspellings next to their equivalent Latin character. Made in Adobe Illustrator with the fonts “Gallaudet Regular” and “Myriad.” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
To be honest, it’s kind of a frustrating experience. As someone who’s spent his whole life in Georgia, I’ve very rarely been in a situation where I had to deal with a language barrier, and I doubt I’ve ever been in a situation where I was among a group that wasn’t at least able to carry on a conversation in my native language (the closest I think I’ve come was the time when Rachael and I went to visit her parents in Germany, but that doesn’t really count because most of the Europeans I interacted with spoke English in addition to their native languages). Going to the Deaf culture gatherings was way different, because I found myself in a situation with people who I couldn’t communicate with.
It was very humbling.
Of course, these social events aren’t as bad as you might think, because there are a lot of ASL students who can hear that attend, and they do talk to each other to refresh themselves on signs that they’re still learning. Still, in that context, where the dominant form of communication is supposed to be ASL, it felt kind of rude to be speaking aloud. I normally don’t mind being quiet in large groups, but this was different because I was also unable to understand a lot of what was being said. For a couple nights in the past two months, I’ve been able to get, just a little bit, what it’s like not to be able to participate in, or even follow, the dominant conversation.
Now, the other night when Rachael and I went to the deaf culture meetup, things were actually a lot better, because I got to meet one of the teachers in UGA’s ASL program, Brian. He was incredibly gracious considering I was someone without any real prior knowledge of ASL just coming to one of these events. He went to a lot of trouble over the course of a couple hours to try to include me in the conversations that were going on by teaching me some new signs. Even now, I’m still in awe of how much trouble he went to in order to make me feel welcome.
That kind of hospitality was really encouraging, and it left me wanting to learn more ASL and engage more with this community that I’m such a newcomer to. It’ll probably be slow going, since I’m not taking any formal classes, but I’m okay with that. There are people out there who are worth getting to know, and if I get to learn a new language in the process, then I guess that’s a bonus.
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