#signed communication

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

I don't know if you remember me but I'm the original Anon who first mentioned deaf!Jaskier to you a while ago. I'm so glad to see that the fandom has gained more content on it!

Me, too! I’m so honored that you trust me to write something like this. I will do my best to represent deaf!Jaskier well.

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Geralt slowed Roach to a halt and turned to face the bard, whose tongue was sticking out from between his lips. He was standing stock-still in the middle of the dirt path, his eyes squinting down at his lutestring. He glanced up at Geralt, signing hastily: This string will break soon.

The witcher nodded. We’ll get new ones soon.

Jaskier smiled brightly, contented, and slung the lute into its case. There was no point endangering his eyes or fingers by playing with strings that might break. The bard jogged up to Geralt’s side and tapped against his leg to get his attention. When the witcher glanced down, Jaskier asked: How much further today?

Six miles. Maybe more, maybe less. No town today, sorry.

That’s fine. I like the stars.

Geralt smiled. He was lucky to have a friend like Jaskier, who never gave up on him and always seemed to bring out the best side of his gruff, grumpy nature. He was sure it had something to do with the bard’s tenacity; who else could be born deaf and still devote their life to making beautiful music?

His signed poetry was also rather touching, but if Geralt ever said anything about it, it would go straight to the bard’s head. And that was large enough already.

The silence had never weighed heavily on Geralt, and it felt even more comfortable with Jaskier at his side, chatting to him with his hands when he felt like it, whistling softly once and awhile.

I love you, he said, hands safely within the confines of his cloak for now. Someday he’d be able to admit it for real, but not yet. He said it again just to feel the way his fingers moved through the words: I love you so much.

[askanautistic]

I hope a sign language question is good here? For several reasons, I really want to be able to sign, to help with my speech problems and whatnot, but the idea of learning a whole new grammar system with ASL is really daunting, especially since I have horrible memory problems and brain fog. I recently came across PSE, which uses mostly the same signs but more English-based grammar, pretty much, but I've heard that PSE was made by non-Deaf people and so it erases Deaf culture. Thoughts?

I’m a hearing BSL user, so obviously my opinion isn’t as important as the opinion of the Deaf community. The best people to ask would be Deaf native sign language users, particularly those who might also be autistic or have other conditions that might affect their language skills. However, I do know of many people (d/Deaf and hearing) who use signs to communicate but who aren’t able to use, or might not have proper access to, full sign language. My girlfriend works in a Deaf school (although some students are hearing) where the students have additional needs, and whilst most of them have some communication difficulties they aren’t all able to use sign language. This might be because they have limited access to full sign language (because they have hearing families and school staff generally have to use a lot of SSE to ensure all staff and students communication needs are being met) dexterity problems that mean the signs have to be altered, or have learning disabilities that make other forms of signed communication more accessible/suitable for their needs than learning sign language, or even because some of them prefer to speak (but need to sign to help others understand what they’re saying). They do learn BSL as it’s recognised that that’s an important right to recognise (that Deaf students should have access to their culture and language), but they might go on to have a preference for using a different form of communication.My Deaf tutors have always stressed that sign languages are languages with their own grammar and syntax etc., and that SSE, PSE, Makaton (and similar forms of signed communication) aren’t sign languages, and it’s important to be clear about what is and what isn’t a sign language, but these are still valid forms of communication and have their uses.I can’t speak for how it would be to learn ASL, because I know very little ASL, but from my experiences learning BSL I’d say that the grammar rules make a lot of sense. For most people it seems to be something that takes a few years to fully get the grasp of, so don’t worry if you don’t understand it at first. It might seem daunting, but you might well find that you pick it up more easily than you expect. It’s definitely still worth trying (even if your grammar lags while your vocabulary improves, you might later find that you can later use ASL as well as/instead of PSE). If memory is an issue it might be that you aren’t any worse at learning grammar etc. than you are the vocab itself.Basically, I think that people shouldn’t be blocked from being able to communicate. Whatever makes communication accessible is okay.On that note, however, using signs (whether you’re using a sign language or a different form) obviously limits you to communicating with other people who understand those signs. I use BSL with some people, text-to-speech with others, because not everyone understands BSL and the person who interprets for me isn’t always available, or might not be able to interpret things in the way I need them to be interpreted in all situations. So I still think that if you want to learn to sign then that’s great, and you definitely should, but if it’s specifically as a communication aid you might also want to look into other forms of communication that the people you are likely to be communicating with will understand.- Ben