Good article. On super-noticing.

Mr Soltzberg:

It is ironic: people don’t notice that noticing is important! Or that they’re already doing it. It’s kind of like breathing—we’re not usually that aware of it. It’s much easier to recognize more “outbound” activities like brainstorming, testing, designing, refining. But noticing is just as important—it’s really where everything begins. There’s a funny Zen saying about that: “Don’t just do something, sit there.” It’s a reminder to let yourself take things in as well as output them.

I do believe that anyone who acquires sign language has this ability—to super notice, because we can communicate exclusively with our facial expressions and hands, with no sound.

6,366 people want to learn sign language.

link

Cool. :-)

Cool.

Thanks to Don who posted a link to Google’s news archive. I decided to explore a little further and saw this great chart generated by Google. So I made this chart with a bit of ASL history.

ASL history chart.

1816 - Sign language from France was brought to the United States by Thomas Gallaudet, now known as American Sign Language.
1880 - ASL was banned in the 1880 Milan Conference.
1960 - Dr. William Stokoe Jr. published Sign Language Structure, showing that ASL is a complex natural language in its own right with an independent syntax and grammar.
1988 - Deaf President Now (DPN) began protest, selecting Dr. I King Jordan as Gallaudet’s first deaf president.
2000 to now - Another protest at Gallaudet University. Deaf blogsphere emerged. Videophone is invented.

This confirms it. I’m convinced that American Sign Language is the fastest growing language in the nation right now.

via The Detroit News

Starting this fall, Michigan State University students can live in a dorm where American Sign Language will be the primary mode of communication, university leaders announced Thursday.
MSU’s ASL Living/Learning community will be housed at Snyder-Phillips Hall and will be one of the most innovative programs in the nation, officials say.

Color By Hand: The American Sign Language Spectrum

Very cool. Someone made a very nice post, using colors to learn American Sign Language, on their website, colourlovers.com.

Good story.

By Christina Salerno / The Modesto Bee

Lots of people make friends with their co-workers. Few go so far as to learn a second language to communicate with them.

That’s the story of Timothy Lopez and Brandon Bearce.

The duo have been hauling away piles of discarded furniture, yard debris and other materials for three years as employees of 1-800-GOT- JUNK?, a junk removal service with a branch in Stanislaus County.

The first time they met, Bearce was “a little skeptical” about working with Lopez, his randomly assigned partner on a junk removal truck.

Lopez, 25, was born deaf and has limited speech because of his disability.

Bearce’s doubts were erased when he saw Lopez in action.

Cool. :-)

MONTVILLE, Conn.�American Sign Language is, by some estimations, the third-most spoken language in the United States. And students in Montville High School’s ASL classes have found multiple opportunities to use their skills.

The Board of Education formally approved the ASL program at Montville High in 2004. Now about 70 students take three levels of ASL there, including six students who either are deaf or hard of hearing.

The ASL 4 students also have conducted a mock trial in sign language, learned holiday-related signs and studied the signs of other countries. Last year, Bell said, students created an “ideal room” for someone who is deaf.

The cultural aspects of the deaf community extend beyond theater or art. People who are deaf or hard of hearing, for example, have more in-depth conversations about each other when meeting for the first time, Perkins said.

“You could walk away from the person knowing their history without knowing their first name,” Perkins said.

But the deaf culture has no food specific to it. So when the world language department had its ethnic food night, Bell said, the ASL students found themselves in a bind for a cultural dish.

But they found a way to take part in the event.

“We made finger foods,” Bell said.

Saw this from friendsofwashoe.org that Washoe, the first non-human to learn sign language, has died.

Washoe was the first non-human animal to acquire a human language and her adopted son Loulis is the first to acquire a human language from another chimpanzee.

Her name sign is formed with the fingers of a “W” hand flicking the ear on the same side. She was named for Washoe county Nevada where she lived with Drs. Allen and Beatrix Gardner until age five.

Washoe was adopted on June 21, 1966. She was cross-fostered; that is, she was raised in the Gardners’ home as if she were a deaf human child.

She was 42 years old, a long life for a female chimpanzee. Most females in captivity live an average of 33.5 years.

I’ve always known that chimpanzees were capable of learning sign language but never thought about who was the first non-human to learn sign language. This sounds like something that should go into Guinness’ World Records.