1.24.2009

What's wrong with fingerspelling Obama??

I was appalled to see this post forwarded to me by a friend ( http://www.deafvideo.tv/video/watch/33905/) for two reasons.

The first one is that she says the community has decided on Obama's name sign, and she is notifying him. The community? WHAT? I don't remember being consulted. No one where I live was consulted. No one in MOST of the country/world was consulted before deciding on this name sign. That was arrogant and unacceptable.

Second, this name sign does not follow ASL rules for name signs. Name signs are supposed to only be based on first letters in a person's name or on a person's physical features. This sign is neither. Its movements aren't right for name signs either. Name signs are not supposed to look like they could be signs for something else, because that causes confusion. Need proof? Look in "The Book of Name Signs" by Sam Supalla.

Obama is easily fingerspelled, and I think too many people are afraid of fingerspelling. Let's just fingerspell his name and turn it into a lexicalized sign. It's beautiful fingerspelled.

Let's reject this ridiculous name sign.