Dear Hearing People
Just because something looks beautiful to you, does not make it a good thing. Using butchered ASL to make a music video is not a good thing. Telling people that you are using ASL when you are actually transliterating from a dictionary is not a good thing. Discounting and dismissing when Deaf people themselves tell you you are being disrespectful is not a good thing. I don't give a flying fuck how "beautiful" her videos are, she's butchering a beautiful language and passing it off as expertise. Her videos aren't even Pidgin or baby signs level, its BULLSHIT.
Example: she signs "hard to fall asleep" as
"rock-solid to trip (I)sleep" because apparently she is unaware (or doesn't care) that some words which have many meanings in English do not have the same range of meaning in ASL. Like the word "fall" - it has three main meanings but one word is used in English. Well in ASL you don't use the same sign for those three meanings. Even Signed Exact English doesn't butcher the language like that, SEE has a specific sign for every English word so "fall" will not transliterate three ways. Because SEE isn't a language, its a code. At least its a proper code, what she's doing isn't even that. Fuck me.
I commented on one of her vids as blandly as I could that she isn't using ASL. SO of course her adoring (ignorant) masses jump up to defend her. She, wisely, says nothing because she knows full well what she's doing and she doesn't care. I google her and find several blogs and other mentions by Deaf people who despise her because they've told her straight up what she's doing is wrong but apparently she either doesn't answer them or blows it off like its no big deal with "well everyone signs differently"
Let me ask you something, if you heard someone say
"Book blue it he give me for to read"
and everyone around said "OMG what beautiful English Poetry!!"
wouldn't you be a bit peeved? Now imagine you tell them "um, that's not English, that's English words used in Spanish syntax. You can't do that, its not the same" only to be called a naysayer with no heart because you can't see the beauty in it? Fuck me. You can say "look, people who speak English don't USE it that way" and some jackass tells you "oh everyone speaks English differently"
There are RULES in language. Ignoring those rules means you don't respect the language.
I know why she's doing this, because she doesn't take ASL as a real language and neither do any of her adoring fans. They just think its gestured English. Christ that really riles me.
So, hearing people? Don't fucking do that. ASL is not gestured ENglish or even signed English. Its a fucking LANGUAGE and it has RULES. Either learn the rules or put your hands down.
Example: she signs "hard to fall asleep" as
"rock-solid to trip (I)sleep" because apparently she is unaware (or doesn't care) that some words which have many meanings in English do not have the same range of meaning in ASL. Like the word "fall" - it has three main meanings but one word is used in English. Well in ASL you don't use the same sign for those three meanings. Even Signed Exact English doesn't butcher the language like that, SEE has a specific sign for every English word so "fall" will not transliterate three ways. Because SEE isn't a language, its a code. At least its a proper code, what she's doing isn't even that. Fuck me.
I commented on one of her vids as blandly as I could that she isn't using ASL. SO of course her adoring (ignorant) masses jump up to defend her. She, wisely, says nothing because she knows full well what she's doing and she doesn't care. I google her and find several blogs and other mentions by Deaf people who despise her because they've told her straight up what she's doing is wrong but apparently she either doesn't answer them or blows it off like its no big deal with "well everyone signs differently"
Let me ask you something, if you heard someone say
"Book blue it he give me for to read"
and everyone around said "OMG what beautiful English Poetry!!"
wouldn't you be a bit peeved? Now imagine you tell them "um, that's not English, that's English words used in Spanish syntax. You can't do that, its not the same" only to be called a naysayer with no heart because you can't see the beauty in it? Fuck me. You can say "look, people who speak English don't USE it that way" and some jackass tells you "oh everyone speaks English differently"
There are RULES in language. Ignoring those rules means you don't respect the language.
I know why she's doing this, because she doesn't take ASL as a real language and neither do any of her adoring fans. They just think its gestured English. Christ that really riles me.
So, hearing people? Don't fucking do that. ASL is not gestured ENglish or even signed English. Its a fucking LANGUAGE and it has RULES. Either learn the rules or put your hands down.