What is this person saying in ASL?
November 14, 2022 10:59 AM

Happened across this unauthorized YouTube posting of the most recent episode of Last Week Tonight. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YS6KU-HQtO4 There is an inset in the lower righthand corner of a person signing which, as far as I can tell, does not correspond to the program. Can someone provide an interpretation? (Note: I’m aware that it might not be American Sign Language. I am not versant enough to recognize the differences between regional signed languages).
posted by Silvery Fish to Grab Bag (1 answer total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
Girlfriend of selection, who is conversant in ASL, provided the following response:

First, I cannot tell if the dude is actually interpreting or not. The gaps in his signing are too long; I think he'd be signing much faster and much more consistently if he was interpreting what John Oliver is saying (and he's talking really, really fast). I'm not sure what else he would be doing, maybe summarizing? But why that would be necessary is beyond me. I can't say more than that with certainty becaaaaauuuuuuseeeeeee

I don't think he's using ASL. I looked up the Youtuber who posted the video, and he's in Vietnam, so this may have been a program aired on Vietnamese television, in which case the interpreter (or whatever he is / is doing) is likely using Vietnamese Sign Language, or a dialect of Vietnamese Sign Language, which I have never seen. A vvvveeeeeery cursory Google of the matter says that there are three indigenous signed languages to Vietnam, two of which are heavily influenced by French Sign Language, which is not surprising, given the history of colonization there. It would also explain why this person does use signs that I can identify (the sign for AMERICA seems to be the same, for example) because ASL is actually derived from French Sign Language. I'm not sure in this case what' influenced' means when Wikipedia says 'influenced by French Sign Language"; like where the indigenous sign language was in it's development when the French came along. The third signed language of Vietnam is more closely tied to Laos and Thailand. (citation for this entire bit of information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_sign_languages

It's also hard for me to tell because I can't make out that he spells anything (if the alphabet is done on two hands, as several languages do, it's a great indicator the person is not using ASL), which also makes it harder to identify what language he may be using. If it's one of the Vietnamese sign languages, he would likely use the one handed alphabet, as ASL does, because of the French influence.
posted by agentofselection at 1:52 PM on November 14, 2022


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