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August 18, 2014

Ameslan



Ameslan \ AM-uh-slan, AM-slan \ noun

1. American Sign Language.


HANDSPEAK.COM says the word is an old one and obsolete since the 1960's. I've been around since before the 60's but wasn't familiar with it.

I've been acquainted with a lot of people who are hard of hearing and my own hearing isn't all that good, but my experiences with deaf folks are few.  I grew up with a nearly deaf girl whose mom was a teacher in elementary school and sometimes when Mary was acting up, her mother would scold her with sign language.   The thing I remember most about Mary was when her hearing aid would malfunction or the battery would be nearly drained, it made a horrible, high-pitched sound and I was always amazed that she couldn't hear it. 

My nieces learned a little bit to sign some Christmas carols for their church, but I don't know if they learned enough to communicate with deaf folks.  (I guess wishing them a Merry Christmas wouldn't really count as truly communicating)

I do have a dear online friend who is deaf but other than in chat rooms and email, I've never been around her.  She says she used to use ASL when she was younger, but doesn't know it now as she did then and generally just reads lips to understand what people are saying.  She watches a lot of TV and uses closed captioning - so do I, but it's not because I can't hear them, I simply can't understand what they're saying.  Just last night I was watching True Detective and went online to read a transcript of the show to find out what some bits of dialogue were.  

A long time ago, a friend and I were doing the "either/or" conversational game. (The choices offered are a dilemma, with neither option being desirable,  such as "Would you rather be executed by the electric chair or hanging?") The question was posed "Would you rather be blind or deaf?" I said deaf, because I think the world would be a hard place in which to exist if one couldn't see, but my friend said he'd rather be blind,  because he could learn to read Braille, but he didn't think he could live without music.  I still would choose deaf, but I still wouldn't argue with my friend's choice.

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