Sign name
Encyclopedia
In Deaf culture
and sign language
, a sign name is a special sign that is used to uniquely identify a person, just like a name. There are some special cultural rules around sign names; for example, they must be agreed upon by you and people in the Deaf community
. This ensures that no one else in the community already has the same sign name, or that the same sign does not have a different meaning. Until a person receives a sign name, the person's name is usually fingerspelled
.
community, sign names are usually subdivided into two naming systems: descriptive (DNS) and arbitrary (ANS). The DNS system manually illustrates physical features, while the ANS system is the first letter of their English name applied to one or more locations. Though the location can sometimes have some implications (e.g. forehead/temple for male, chin/mouth for female), it is usually just a unique sign without other meaning.
In France only the DNS system is used.
In Britain or Japan, however, people can be named after the existing signs for something related to them.
Deaf culture
Deaf culture describes the social beliefs, behaviors, art, literary traditions, history, values and shared institutions of communities that are affected by deafness and which use sign languages as the main means of communication. When used as a cultural label, the word deaf is often written with a...
and sign language
Sign language
A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
, a sign name is a special sign that is used to uniquely identify a person, just like a name. There are some special cultural rules around sign names; for example, they must be agreed upon by you and people in the Deaf community
Deaf culture
Deaf culture describes the social beliefs, behaviors, art, literary traditions, history, values and shared institutions of communities that are affected by deafness and which use sign languages as the main means of communication. When used as a cultural label, the word deaf is often written with a...
. This ensures that no one else in the community already has the same sign name, or that the same sign does not have a different meaning. Until a person receives a sign name, the person's name is usually fingerspelled
Fingerspelling
Fingerspelling is the representation of the letters of a writing system, and sometimes numeral systems, using only the hands. These manual alphabets , have often been used in deaf education, and have subsequently been adopted as a distinct part of a number of sign languages around the world...
.
In different cultures
Different deaf cultures appear to have different customs around sign names. For example, amongst the Deaf AmericanDeaf American
A Deaf American is defined as a member of the American Sign Language linguistic minority. Though they are typically medically deaf, they can also include the children of Deaf people and a few hearing people who learn ASL and become adopted into the community...
community, sign names are usually subdivided into two naming systems: descriptive (DNS) and arbitrary (ANS). The DNS system manually illustrates physical features, while the ANS system is the first letter of their English name applied to one or more locations. Though the location can sometimes have some implications (e.g. forehead/temple for male, chin/mouth for female), it is usually just a unique sign without other meaning.
In France only the DNS system is used.
In Britain or Japan, however, people can be named after the existing signs for something related to them.