Comments on: Trivia: Deaf Student Invented the (American) Football Huddle

By: Sharon Arnold

Sharon Arnold — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:17:55 +0000

ASL is not a written or spoken language, it’s a visual language. Of course it has a difference sentence structure than English. It’s not English, and shouldn’t be compared to English. ASL is recognized as a foreign language in many colleges and high schools now. One myth about ASL is it’s just signs in English word order.
English is a second language to most Deaf people. Online, they communicate mostly through video blogs, since they can see each other.
Are all written and spoken languages the same? No. Every country has it’s own sign language just the same as the spoken language. How could there possibly be a universal sign language? (Is there a universal spoken language?) It’s about as ridiculous as expecting a sign language interepreter to read Braille! (which happens quite often!)
The Deaf write in ASL GLOSS, not English. They should be able to learn first in their first language, ASL before being forced to learn English, which is their second language. Those who are functionally illiterate have parents who did not instill education in them as a very young child when language learning was very important.
One other note: It’s much easier for a hearing person to learn ASL than it is for a deaf person to learn to speak!

By: Caroline Miniscule

Caroline Miniscule — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 01:38:36 +0000

The sad thing about American Sign Language, in a sense, is that it has a different sentence structure than English. (Even sadder is the fact that every country has its own different sign language!!! Instead of deaf people all around the world being able to converse with each other, they’re just as closed off as hearing people.)

Anyway, I’ve just visited a deaf website where the writing ability sucked. This is because they learn ASL, sign language, rather than English grammar, so many deaf people are functionally illiterate when it comes to reading. That’s sad. Reading is my whole life…if I couldn’t hear, it would become only more so.

By: Jimmie Cope

Jimmie Cope — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 16:36:08 +0000

The ASL is a beautiful thing for so many. We all enjoy so many wonderful sounds. If we went one day without being able to hear it would be so sad. When seeing someone sign it brings tears.

By: Kathleen

Kathleen — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:11:46 +0000

what a fun fact

By: smak

smak — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 23:56:52 +0000

“The American football huddle was invented by Paul Hubbard, a deaf player at Gallaudet University, to avoid the other team see his signs.”

This is still awkward. A better way to write this would be:

“The American football huddle was invented by Paul Hubbard, a player at the all-deaf Gallaudet University, to keep the other team from seeing his signs.”

By: Ali S.

Ali S. — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 21:19:56 +0000

I’ve been trying to learn sign language for awhile. I’ve always considered it useful as I have one friend who is deaf and one who has a brother who is deaf.

By: Alex

Alex — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 19:16:02 +0000

Yes, that’s awkward, wasn’t it? Thanks for noticing, Nastia – I’ve fixed the sentence (I think!)

By: CheeseDuck

CheeseDuck — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 18:24:42 +0000

Was he embarrassed?

By: Nastia

Nastia — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 16:16:35 +0000

“to avoid the other team see his sign language” I don’t get it, is that worded correctly?

By: Leah King

Leah King — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 15:19:50 +0000

While Gallaudet disbanded the football team in 1994, they came back as a club team, and have been an NCAA DIV III football team since 2006. BTW, they won 4 games last season. Go Bisons!

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 14:12:44 +0000

What are you, like 12?