Читать книгу Sign Talk - Ernest Thompson Seton - Страница 14

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There is at least one place where all pure Sign Language must fail; that is in dealing with proper names, especially new proper names. If I wish to signal “New York State” to an expert sign-talker, I can use the nickname “Empire State” and signal “Country great crowned”; or, for “Kentucky” I can signal “Country blue grass”; or Boston, “The Hub City”; or Chicago “Windy City”; but when I come to South America or Oberammergau or Poughkeepsie, I am obliged to fall back on the white man’s method and spell the name. For this reason then we begin our sign-talk by teaching the one-handed sign alphabet of the deaf. The two-handed will answer, but obviously a one-handed sign is better than a two-handed, other things equal. We aim at simplicity; and there are many occasions when one has but one hand free.