The most basic conversation between two people starts with an introduction and asking some basic questions to get to know each other. In this lesson, we'll be showing you how to introduce yourself and also some special features of SASL.
See if you can spot the differences between the what you would normally hear in spoken English (A) and how a deaf person would sign the same concept (B).
| Conversation: | Videos: How to sign the concept |
| A: Hello B: Hello |
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| A: How are you? B: You how? |
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| A: I am Sibongile. B: Me name Sibongile |
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| A: Where do you live? B: Live where? |
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| A: Johannesburg B: Johannesburg |
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| A: Nice to meet you. B: Nice meet you. |
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| A: Thank you, Bye. B: Thank you bye. |
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So did you spot the differences? If you take a close look at the sentence structures, you will notice that SASL has its own sentence structure independent of standard English. This is a feature of SASL that makes it different from English. Now you can see that SASL is its own language with its own grammatical rules. This is discussed in more detail in Lesson 4.
Self-test:
Take a look at the sign language animations above and see if you can figure out how to sign the following concepts:
- Hello
- Bye
- Thank you
- Meet
- Name
- Live
Now try and sign the following:
- Hello, my name is <your name> - remember, you practiced finger spelling your name in lesson 1.
- I live in <where you live>.