Talk:American Sign Language

Untitled
Alright so I've sort of taken it upon myself to fix up this page. I agree that this shouldn't strive to be just another dictionary. (at least not at this point) Right now I'm adding some instruction. You can't learn a language with just a dictionary, although it's kind of hard without it. I'm gonna email a few people who run online ASL dictionaries and see if I can link directly to their definitions. (or maybe they'll even let us put some stuff of this site, who knows?) Any help would be greatly appreciated. --Genericdave 07:04, 24 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi, I'm working on the French Sign Language wikibook. I think this is a unique opportunity to build something really different -- not just a dictionary, but an actual manual of ASL (or LSF in my case).  In case you are geographically close enough to talk to anybody who could donate material, I've made a demo of the LSF wiki that you can transport on laptop.  This is useful for showing people directly exactly what we're trying to do, and really driving home the point that we're not trying to just build a dictionary.  If you want, I can send you the zip file.  Otherwise, if you have any other ideas on how we could collaborate, please let me know.  Cheers, -- Kowey 21:52, 25 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Another note: videos on wikimedia projects have to be in the (free) ogg theora format. I might be of some tech assistance on that end.  If you are a programmer, we might be able to work together to produce a user friendly video converter so that more people can get their ASL stuff online -- Kowey 21:56, 25 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Alright! I can't believe someone is actually interested in helping me out on this. I figured the popularity of sign language would be minimal to say the least.  Go ahead and email me the zip at genericdave AT hotmail.com (just be sure to post here once you have so I know to check it)  I would love to see your ideas.  As for the video stuff we could theoretically tape the stuff ourselves but I'd like to venture a few other directions first.  --Genericdave 23:45, 28 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Sent. Sorry it took me so long; I had to package it a bit more nicely than I had.  If anyone else is interested, contact me on my user page. -- Kowey 23:41, 30 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh, and I'd also like to suggest that instead of videos we could possibly use animated images (are gifs allowed on wikipedia?) --Genericdave 23:50, 28 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Worth considering. Do you mean animated drawings? -- Kowey 23:41, 30 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I mean basic picture animations so visitors will not have to have any sort of fancy plugins to view the pictures in site. You can also check out how this guy does it.  Getting any sort of dictionary up would be quite the undertaking.  We might be able to convince one of the owners of the other online dictionaries to let us link to some of their stuff for words that we use in examples and such.  Then again, there's no hurry to get this done or anything, and it's not like there's a big demand, so I see no reason why such a colossal undertaking should be ruled out.  By the way, I looked at the zip you sent me, good stuff.  I'll see about actually getting some information up before I worry about structure though.  I have a ASL midterm coming up here so I probably won't update much for a little while. --Genericdave 11:19, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Animations continued...
Interesting. Commons *does* seem accept gif images, so it'd be an interesting thing to try out. I have some doubts -- it might be very large and it might be too choppy to be useful -- but the only way to know for sure is to try it out.

Otherwise, I think that the picture-strip format (i.e. the lifeprint approach you showed me) is a good complement to regular video. Video for people who want to see the sign in motion (rhythm, etc). Picture strip for those who want to get an idea at a glance (no need to keep going back and forth) or to print things out. -- Kowey 00:08, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Yeah you've got the basic idea. I just hate sites that force people to install particular software in order to view anything.  I guess it would be pretty cool to have multiple kinds of examples in the dictionary.  Oh yeah and by the way, sorry if I'm slow on updating for the next few weeks.  Quarter's coming to an end here and school has a way of sneaking up on ya.  Like I said I'm planning on doing this but it's gonna be slow. --Genericdave 02:38, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I understand :-) that's one of the things I like about this project. It's impressive to see what people can do with the precious spare time they have.  I also understand the point about forcing people to install particular software.  But that's related to the reason why we are using the Ogg Theora format (see Video policy).  It's the only free format around, the only thing that prevents us from being at the mercy of any one vendor.  Only problem is that it's very much a minority in the real world, hence the "special" software.  Best, -- Kowey 23:00, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

GordKnot
Hey guys. I don't know ASL, but I'm hoping to begin studying this summer. Very glad to see this book getting some attention; as you stated above, there are many dictionaries online, but no lexicons and no grammars. If you want any help on the technical end (converting or editing video, etc), let me know. Also, I cue a bit (slowly - still working on that); would it be appropriate to put a page on CS in here, just as a "here's one alternative that some Deaf use"? I don't have a Wiki account, but you can email me at gordknot@gmail.com -- GordKnot 19:35 10 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Hey, welcome to the project! You might consider creating an account so that we can interact more easily.    It's pretty painless: name, password, password (verification) and click the "Create New Account" button.  Here are some ideas on how to help the project along:
 * Can you do any computer programming? -- it would be great if we could make it easier for non-technical users to get their video into ogg format. If we could have a graphical utility, or somehow integrate an anything-to-ogg converter into the wikipedia uploader, it would seriously move the project along.
 * Do you know anybody who teaches ASL? See if you can get them to participate in the project, and/or donate course materials to the site.  I have a demonstrator that you can download and carry around on a laptop.  It might be a useful way to show people what we're trying to accomplish.
 * Also, I think a page of wikibook on cued speech would be very useful. You might stir up some political issues, but wikimedia projects are very used to handling controversy, so we'll be ok :-) Please feel free to dive right in, put whatever content you think would be useful, change things, and generally be bold.  It's what makes this project work. Best, -- Kowey 16:03, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Older Comments
Rather than composing another online American Sign Language (ASL) Dictionary, the goal of this page is to be a resource of various online ASL Dictionaries
 * Aw come on, we can do better than that! (N.B. I'm not an ASL speaker). One thing I've always found frustrating about ASL books I see in the stores is that they almost always consist of dictionaries.  What about grammar?  How about we try to fill the gap?  Provide something that teaches people how to speak ASL, beyond a list of words, but how to manipulating things like Classifiers, Role, etc?  Check out the French Sign Language book (http://fr.wikibooks.org/wiki/LSF).  We in the LSF wiki community haven't had time to put anything really substantial together, but at least we're aiming high, and hopefully, little by little, we'll get there.  Don't you think there's room for collaboration on some real, useful sign language resources? -- Kowey 17:47, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There's a lot more to ASL than simply knowing the signs. Sentences are not formed the same way they are in American English. I might take the time to add a bit of info about how to put the signs together at a later date. -- Genericdave


 * Alright that's it. I'm gonna completely revamp this thing.  I'm not gonna attempt another online dictionary (at least not at this point) but I'll definitely add some grammatical stuff. --Genericdave 23:14, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

WB:WIW
ASL dictionaries and directories of websites are not acceptable content. I've started an outline, and transwikied some content from Wikipedia. I hope to contribute more, but reverting to any of these previous conceptions of what the book might be would likely result in deletion. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 02:15, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Merge transwikis to here
– Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 02:31, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Infants and toddlers
I suggest a book about Sign language in infants and toddlers --193.145.201.52 (talk) 10:32, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Formating and making this book a book
If someone wants to work on the transwiki stuff I can help out with the formating. Also the pages need to be more book like. The idea is that this is going to be a pdf file and a text book for people to learn from. Pictures are fine but lets not have anything that moves around and can't be printed, eh? We can put the moving stuff on wikimedia or something.
 * Why would you avoid using video? Wikibooks isn't paper (luckily). I'd be happy to perform imports as needed - just let me know what's needed. Besides that, I can help with organization. However, I'm not able to take on much of an author role at the moment. &mdash; Mike.lifeguard &#124; talk 07:17, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

To Do
Pasted from the front page of this wikibook:
 * /Grammar 1/ is a de-wikified version of American Sign Language grammar which needs to be split up into the various grammar lessons.
 * Transwiki:American Sign Language needs to be split into multiple modules: /History/, /Simple Sentences 1/...
 * Transwiki:Deaf culture needs to be split into multiple modules /Deaf Culture/, /History/, /Dialogue 1/...
 * Transwiki:Bimodal bilingualism needs to be split into /Deaf Culture/, /History/.
 * Transwiki:Deafness can be merged into /Deaf Culture/.
 * Transwiki:Profanity in American sign language can be added towards the end of the book and reworked as a lesson.
 * Transwiki:Two-handed manual alphabet can be added as an advanced lesson regarding combined hearing-vision impairments

If there are no protests, I would like to start a sandbox of sorts to develop a different approach for this wikibook. It will be a slow process, as I would like to gather images and make the lesson plans balance grammar learning with vocabulary introduction, and exercises. Help would be greatly appreciated, as my knowledge of ASL is basic at the moment. --Thereen (discuss • contribs) 06:09, 27 February 2011 (UTC)