Conversations With BSL - A Personal Account

    You can't follow this blog for very long without knowing that I'm learning BSL - or British Sign Language.

    Anyone learning a language as an adult will know how difficult it can be. Learning from scratch a new vocabulary and grammar is a lot of fun, but hard work as well. Children can learn so much easier; their brains are more conducive to learning two (or more) languages.

    I'm 29, so definitely not a kid who's going to find it a breeze, and half-way through BSL level one (bear in mind there are four levels I want to do) with an exam coming up next week. Now that I'm half-way through the course, I've found myself thinking more about what I feel I've accomplished so far, and how far I've still got to go.

    I've often got frustrated with myself since first trying to become more "Deaf aware", because I make mistakes when I try to think about what I'm saying - or signing. I've spoken before about thinking in English when I actually need to start thinking in sign, and in my last class managed to chuck that completely out the window and mangle a question to Paul, my teacher, in some weird English / BSL blend that didn't even mean anything to me.

    I'm my own worst critic, and I was annoyed at my butchery of the language. I go through phases like this, I don't mind admitting, where I'll make mistakes that will cause my confidence to dip. I love learning the language - I certainly hope that's shone through my blogs if nowhere else - but I always want to keep improving, rather than going backwards - especially in the week leading up to my exam.

    But life has a way of being very unpredictable - and Deaf people have a way of setting you back on the right path just when you need it most. I always look forward to a Friday at work, because a lot of Deaf people make use of the services and our local Communications Worker for the Deaf community is based in our offices.

    I've been fortunate enough to get to know a lot of our regular Deaf visitors and will often have regular conversations with them. These regulars are more inspirational to me than I suspect they'll ever know - because they all helped inspire me to begin learning BSL in the first place and all make the effort to talk to me slowly and patiently, and are never offended if I ask them to repeat a word or phrase three times.

    Today, I ended up having a conversation with three or four Deaf people about things that might seem inconsequential - the weather, someone's hobbies, someone else's English course, my impending exam - and I wish I could tell you how much it improved my confidence. I walked away smiling; not because the conversation we'd had was in depth or in any way going to change the world, but because I'd been able to talk to them in their language. I can't properly describe how it felt to share a joke with a group of people that, a year ago, I would have probably shied away from because I was worried about making a fool of myself.

    You'd think after doing work in theatre and customer services that I wouldn't consider that as an option, would you!

    Something so simple has increased my confidence no end and, whenever I berate myself for not knowing a particular sign or fluffing up a sentence, I'll always remember today and the way it's made me so much more determined to progress.

The Life & Times of a Wannabe Writer ...

    It occurs to me that I haven’t written about my other favourite topic, writing, for a while. This may not be a huge loss for some of you, I accept that, but am going to write about it anyway!

    I’ve had some very minor success with my writing … aha, “career” so far, if you could laughingly call it that! I've had a couple of stories published in anthologies (one coming up soon ... on a zombie theme, naturally!), a few pieces in magazines and podcasts (Word Count Podcast, out regularly, download them here, you really should - http://tinyurl.com/6fphz6t) and the wonderful Hearing Times newspaper, where I write every month.

    I'm still at the stage in my writing life (and I seriously hope it never disappears) where I am thrilled to get a contributor's copy of my work or, occasionally (gasp), some payment for my scribblings. It's a concept I'm slowly coming round to - that I might actually get PAID for my work. Clearly, if there are any agents out there reading this, then YES, payment is definitely the way to go and I won't hear anything against that argument.

    A fellow writer and I - Steve Jones, he and I share a website, www.writeordie.co.uk - were very fortunate recently to be approached by a book reviewer who is building her own profile and had asked to review a piece of work of ours. Well, of course Steve and I both quickly agreed and the results can be seen here - http://ebookit.wordpress.com/

    Her honesty and obvious love of literature was really refreshing, so I genuinely value her review and giving such honest feedback about my work! This makes it worthwhile - that people take the time to read my work and give me their thoughts on it. This is brilliant for me, as it makes me think I'm not just writing for myself - and hopefully (wow, I want this to be true) connecting with readers!

    I'm still in a loop of writing whenever I get "free time" - that laughable time in between work, BSL and the occasional outing to remind myself that the world isn't just an urbanised jungle ... which also gives me ample subjects to blog about!

    This article in the Guardian (http://tinyurl.com/6arvrmh) came recommended to me, and it's a good one - talking about the issues that I've touched on today, by someone who's been there, done that and got the t-shirt, probably several times over. It certainly gives me hope for the future!

    Oh, and if you haven't already, why not pop over to my website (www.writeordie.co.uk) and take a look at mine and Steve's work. Even give us a mini-review if you feel so inclined :-)

Viking Swear Words

    I want to talk to you a little bit about Viking swear words, because Norwegian / Viking is a brilliant language to swear in - and who knows, it might come in useful one day.

    The other reason I want to educate you in the way of the Norse is because I've had a lot of search results hit my blog for Viking swear words; this is down to the (coincidental) title of my blog and the fact I once wrote about Sign Language swear words - as a result, I've given in trying to find different search phrases and decided to see how much traffic I can attract in order to educate people in the way of Nordic cursing.

    What I love about Viking culture is their expressive way of swearing. It's not enough, it seems, to call someone a "faen" (Devil), "rasshol" (arsehole) or "pokker" (milder than faen - and, one assumes, rasshol!), but you have to be inventive in how you slip it into a sentence.

    I could walk up to you and call you a "haestpeis" (horse's penis), but it doesn't exactly inspire you, does it? If you really want to have a go at me back for comparing you to the appendage of a horse, then you could quite easily yell at me "Kringlaugd wierd, ein spadi for qvoki ne skeifr drpr munni ne svinhqfdi!", and I would instantly run away screaming.

    Well, it's not every day you hear someone say "Gaze upon thy destiny, with this sword I will cleave your lying maggot mouth from your swine head!", is it?

    Or maybe it is and I've just missed out. Vikings were inventive people.

    Fights between two Norsemen could easily bring in a range of insults, from being a "drinker of sheep's urine" right through to "eater of Axminster food." I don't know what I'd find more terrifying in that situation; being punched and kicked and savaged, or called an eater of Axminster food. Clearly, Axminister's food is a hell of a lot worse than anywhere else's for it to be made into a curse.

    Personally, I like "habjakk", which is a very degoratory word and can basically be used to keep you ticking over until you think of something more inventive - like, oh I don't know, "Hon varr Draconian, gamla vis Hruga uskit'r."

    "I am a Draconian and thou art less than a heap of crap."

    See? Viking swearing is fun!

    There's the infamous "blot", or "heathen", which no discussion of Viking swearing would be without, "Sjettstaur" - which doesn't have a direct equivalent but basically calls into question the other person's hygiene and the legendary "sipill", or potlicker.

    I don't think they're all got a modern-day equivalent, but that makes me love them even more!

    Well, there's an overview just for you to peruse - and now I'm going to see how many people are attracted to this post because of the subject topic. Based on the search results I've seen so far for the rest of my blog, quite a few.

    Oh, and for teaching you these new ways to insult people - Velbekomme.

BSL Dialects

    Accents in oral languages are commonplace; villages, cities and countries all have them and we learn to recognise them - even the Liverpudlians, for goodness sake (and if there's any Liverpudlian's reading this, please don't hurt me).

    BSL, like English, is a fully structured language with a grammar and vocabulary entirely of its own, completely non-dependent on any oral language for its development. As such, it's developed its own dialects, in the same way that English ... or French ... or, well, any other language has.

    I was discussing this at the weekend with some friends - who inspired me to write this post, so blame them - and it's interesting to see how sign languages develop wholly independently of geography. Whilst the US and UK share a common oral language, their sign languages are very different; ASL is one-handed, whereas BSL uses both hands. BSL has more in common with Australian, New Zealand and Sri Lankan sign language, and ASL can trace its history back to French Sign Language.

    It took me a while to get my head round this concept, until I realised that I was putting a hearing slant onto a concept that didn't need it. Sign and hearing languages don't rely on each other for their growth, so naturally they will go off in different directions and not necessarily share the same boundaries.

    What's brilliant to discover are the differences in regional BSL. When I went to the Margate Deaf pub last month, I came across three different signs for the organisation I work for, all of which were recognised - if not used - by most people I met that night. That's three signs for one thing in one pub from people who came from London, Medway and Margate respectively. There's some serious dialects going on in BSL!

    In my class every Tuesday, Paul usually teaches us the variations as and when he thinks we might come across them. We actually spent a very entertaining hour going through the different dialects that you might come across when describing rooms in the house, and it was amazing to consider that there were so many varieties; most of which were recognisable as a variant of the one we knew, but others were a truely "northern" or "southern" turn of phrase that was totally confusing!

    I think that lesson, more than any in a while, made me appreciate how far I've got to go. I need to be able to recognise a lot of different regional variations, or at least be able to confidently recognise fingerspelling so that I can ensure I'm communicating effectively.

    I feel a headache coming on ... I just came across a website with a lot of sign variations. I shouldn't have looked. I now can't remember my local sign for bath, and that's part of my test in a couple of weeks. Oh well, at least the swear word I'm thinking of right now is fairly universal!

Blog Awards

    A piece of very good news came through the ether today; I've been given a blog award by a very talented writer who has also since become a friend as well.

    I must admit, I didn't know blog awards even existed before today when I saw that the friend I mentioned - Richard Wood - had given awarded one of these blog awards and, as part of that nomination, was able to give out awards to the five blogs he feels most deserving - and I was honoured to be one of them. It was especially phenomenal coming from Richard, because I genuinely see him as an exceptionally talented writer that I've been fortunate enough to work with on his Word Count Podcasts that allows writers (such as me) to get their short stories out to a far wider audience than might otherwise have been possible.

    Richard, you are a true gentleman - and I would encourage everyone who reads this to take a look at his website (http://www.rbwood.com/) to find out just how damn talented he is.

    I am truly honoured, I really am, and shall be smiling about this for ... ooh, possibly weeks! There are three things that come as part of a deal if you accept the Stylish Blog Award accolade - , of course, I have done! The first I've already done, and that's to tell you about the person who's given me the award; that's Richard, and I've given you my honest opinion about him already!

    The second thing is to tell you seven random facts about myself and then to nominate five blogs that I feel are also worthy of the Stylish Blog Award.

    Sounds easy enough, but I'm trying desperately to think of seven things that might be vaguely interesting about myself ... hmm, okay, here goes (having spent a couple of hours thinking about it!).

1) My middle names are Nigel Walter Jarvist (Nigel after my dad, Walter after my maternal grandfather and Jarvist after my great-great-great-grandfather).

2) I wrote my first story when I was 8 years old. It was six pages long (with colour illustrations done by myself) and was about a cowboy who visited space and fought with dinosaurs.

3) I'm currently learning BSL (British Sign Language) and would love to be able to use it professionally in the future (a bit of a cheat ... if you regularly read my blog, you'll know this already!).

4) I had to have intensive speech therapy when I was a kid to correct a speech problem; I couldn't pronounce "S", "Th", "G" or "R" - now, I only have an extremely minor lisp that many people don't notice.

5) I'm allergic to peanuts.

6) I'm a vegetarian.

7) I got my first adult passport a year ago, but as yet haven't used it!

Okay, now that's out the way, I want to tell you about my five favourite blogs of the moment.

    Lissa is 21 years old and has bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, which was diagnosed at 9 months of age, and now has a cochlear implant fitted. She is a truly inspiring woman who I avidly follow; you can too, right here - http://ajourneywithacochlearimplant.wordpress.com/

    Chiara is ... well, she's multi-talented and I envy her hugely for that. She's a web designer and creates all sorts of products too, from handbags and brooches through to decorations. Alright, the handbags aren't things I'd ever buy myself, but I've got them in mind for Christmas and birthday presents. She blogs about her work here; http://clscraftcreations.blogspot.com/

    PC Bloggs is, as you've probably guessed, a police officer. He or she writes under a pseudonym as they're a serving officer, but their comments on the current state of law and order in the UK is incredibly interesting - read more about it right here; http://pcbloggs.blogspot.com/

    Paul Waller (yes, Waller, not Weller, the slightly more famous musician) is in a band and is also a music reviewer and interviewer. Our tastes differ on some musical styles, but his interviewing skills are masterful - he always gets good responses out of the bands he speaks to and is always honest in his reviews. I heartily recommend his blog to any music fans out there; http://wallernotweller.wordpress.com/

    PZ Myers is a biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris and calls himself a "godless liberal", so you can see how I liked him almost immediately. His blog is a brilliant discussion point on fundamentalism vs reason and he writes very eloquently too. http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/

    So there you have it - I am now the proud winner of a Stylish Blog Award and have named my five favourite blogs of the moment! Get reading :-)

BSL v SSE

    If you're a hearing person and you think of sign language, you probably think that it’s all the same, right? Wrong! Before I started learning, I know I thought that – but I soon found out how wrong I was!

    British Sign Language (BSL) is the standard language of the Deaf community, but a smaller minority of signers use SSE, or Sign Supported English.

    From what I’ve read, this has caused a lot of controversy in Deaf communities, as SSE is merely a direct translation of English that happens to use BSL signs, whereas BSL is a language in its own right, with its own structure, phrases and colloquialisms.

    A lot of BSL users resist any attempts at SSE being introduced into schools as an “easier” way for children to learn sign, as they feel – justifiably, in my view – that it’s just English translated directly into sign. It would be like me speaking in French but using English grammar. Native French speakers would go mad, so you can imagine how Deaf people must feel.

    As I learn BSL, I’m seeing how the structure is different to English. I’m fairly confident with basic words and sentences, but as soon as I start signing anything more in-depth, I find myself slipping into SSE. I always correct myself, but it’s often difficult to remember the different structure – anyone else remember learning French at school and trying to think where “vous” came in the sentence? Thankfully, Deaf people are incredibly patient with hearing people that are learning, so I’ve got away with my mistakes so far!

    At the Margate Deaf Pub the other night, I met a guy who lost the majority of his hearing at 2 years old. He grew up learning SSE and learnt BSL a few years ago. I hadn’t given any thought to Deaf people growing up knowing SSE rather than BSL, so I think my surprise must have registered. He explained that he’d been born to a hearing family, as a lot of Deaf children are, so if they learn sign, they may often learn SSE because it’s the exact signed equivalent of English and their parents might not know any different. Despite this, I felt stupid at assuming that just because someone knows SSE, they automatically know BSL.

    Thankfully, attitudes seem to be changing – or it might just be that awareness is being raised.

    From my point of view, I’m just getting comfortable learning BSL, rather than SSE or anything else. I want to be able to communicate fully with Deaf people (I’m not there yet!) in their own language, not an English language equivalent. To me, that defeats the object of learning a “new” language.

    In some ways, it would be easier learning SSE, of course, because I wouldn’t have to worry about the sentence structure and could concentrate on the vocabulary, but then I would still be caught with the same problem; BSL users would struggle to understand me, and me them. Just because there’s a challenge involved doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it.

    It’s a challenge for me to think in BSL; being at Level One, my grammar is … basic, to say the least, so signing at speed is beyond me - at the moment. Because my vocabulary is gradually increasing, but still incomplete, I’m finger-spelling a lot – which is good, because it makes sure I know how to spell correctly!

    What my brain needs is practice, so the Deaf pubs are brilliant places to go to. I’m okay one-on-one, and even managed a three-way conversation the other day, but watching a group of people signing is still a sight that sends me into mild panic mode as my brain lags three sentences behind!

    I’m revising for my second exam at the moment, which is a lot harder than the first one, so if you see me looking mildly fraught – or even gaining a few more grey hairs – in the next few weeks, you’ll know why!