Jason and I recently watched The Shape of Water. For those of you who haven't seen it, it is a film about a mute woman who communicates with sign language. She works as a cleaning lady in a government lab. There she meets an aquatic creature who she begins to teach sign language to. (It's an over-simplification, but for terms of this post that's what you need to know.)
The timing made it especially poignant for me: about 6 weeks ago, Jason and I adopted a deaf dog, and we use sign language as a method of communicating with her. We've watched and enjoyed other films that are sign language-heavy, the new Planet of the Apes films being key among those. But it was touching for me to watch it in this new context, of being the way I communicate with my fur baby.
Now, we don't "know" sign language - these are signs that she had already been taught by her previous family and while most of them are easy to remember and straightforward, I have no idea if any of them are accurate American Sign Language.
I also had a great aunt who was deaf. She knew sign language, but we never really used it with her. She could speak and read lips and, while she used sign language with friends who were deaf, she generally didn't with hearing people. The only sign I remember learning from her is the one for "I love you" (which is easily confused with "rock on" symbol, so that's fun : )
Left: "I love you in ASL." Right: The "rock on!"/metal symbol frequently seen at concerts and parties.
I know that at some point I knew more. I was in choir at church for most of my childhood, and I know at one point we learned the signs for "Jesus Loves Me" and "Hosanna in the Highest." I don't remember most of those signs now. I don't remember why we learned them (they were not at the same time). Was someone at the church deaf? Were were doing it in case we had a deaf visitor? I don't think either is the case, as I think we would have done it more regularly and I only recall those 2 separate instances.
I remember at one of the many high school theatre competitions I went to that there was a signing interpreter for one of the plays. I found myself more interested in watching her than watching the play. I have always enjoyed watching sign interpreters - it's the only way of "speaking" (aside from acting) in which facial expression and body language play such a big role in context and meaning. Watching someone "sing" in sign language is just half a step away from watching them dance.
I've been thinking about this subject to use as a post for most of this week so the timing is interesting, too, as a friend from work posted this video of Maya Angelou's "Phenomenal Woman" signed by various women. It's worth a watch:
https://www.facebook.com/aimediaAUS/videos/10155926494549220/UzpfSTEwMDAwMzc5MjE4MjIxMDoxMjMxOTMzMDczNjA5NzU0/?comment_id=1232157433587318¬if_id=1523107934785344¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic