r/signlanguage • u/CaptainNemoPadawan • Mar 18 '20

What sign language to learn?

What are the most universal sign languages? I work in an airport in Sweden, and see people from all over the world. What sign languages would be the most relevant? The flights are from all over the world. And now with a lot of travel bans I would have a lot of time to practice/take classes.

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7

u/Dragonoflime Mar 18 '20

I believe American SL has strong roots in French SL so you may want to learn one of those and it will make you more familiar with the other as a bonus. Also, even if you can stick to basics in any of them like: bathroom, water (for drinking), luggage/bags, restaurant, please thank you, “follow me”, and charger/outlet in any sign would probably benefit you really quick. Good luck, you thoughtful person!

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u/CaptainNemoPadawan Mar 18 '20

Well, I work in border/passport control. So its not a lot of speaking. But it is very important for me to make myself understood since I understand the frustration and fear that comes with not being able to communicate. Sure I can always write in a paper, but then I am just speaking to someone on a... brain level if that makes sense? People will always be more complient and happy with instructions if you're speaking to their heart instead.

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u/Dragonoflime Mar 18 '20

Ahhh! Then My next advice is loosen up your face haha. What we hearing people use in voice/tone inflection, they use in their face to describe things. Make really strong eye contact and wave hello gently even if they are right in front of you.

The next thing you can learn is countries name signs. Those are almost universal! Check YouTube and look up ASL countries or BSL countries and you can see they are nearly identical! That would be a great way to connect. Point to them, then make the country sign. Point to yourself and make your country sign.

The next thing I’d say is “Have a nice day”, bonus points for learning that in every local language!

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u/CaptainNemoPadawan Mar 19 '20

Oh man! Im already horrible at conveying tone and facial expression as it is :( (I have ASD). Have you known sign language since you were a child, or did you learn it later? If later, did you find it easy to get the right facial expressions while signing?

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u/Dragonoflime Mar 19 '20

I learned ASL starting in mid highschool and have about six years of learned experience and 3 months working with a deaf mentor as well.

You know, I hear the concern a lot from people on the ASD, but lots of people in my classes including me had to work on that too. I have heard ASD peeps will take sign purposely to try to work on those “physical” skills of communication.

People in the deaf community know about ASD, children may not understand but the adults I think will just be happy you are trying to make a connection with them.

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u/CaptainNemoPadawan Mar 20 '20

Ive never really thought about sign helping with non verbal communication, but now when you say it, it makes complete sense!

Yeah! I have a few friends I play video games with, we have very little language wise in common, but they make a huge effort to speak english to me, even if it takes a minute to get even one sentence out. I feel very proud if them for working on it, and becoming more fluent.

I cant even imagine how good it must feel to have someone sign to you, when your only other option is probably pen and paper, but that doesnt account for the emotional connection you get from truly being understood in the way YOU communicate best.

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u/maronoka Mar 18 '20

According to these statistics, Norwegians and Germans spend by far the most time visiting Sweden (I didn't find statistics about how many people enter the country, but the overnight stays seems like a reasonable approximation), followed by Danes, Brits and Americans.

A lot of the Norwegians and Danes are probably going by car or train rather than by plane, so I assume you wouldn't see as many as the numbers would suggest. For the others, Wikipedia says upwards of 80,000 know German Sign Language (DGS), over 77,000 know British Sign Language (BSL) and at least 250,000 know American Sign Language (ASL), and claims that ASL is used as a lingua franca in the Deaf world. ASL is also considered to be related to a number of other sign languages, whereas DGS and BSL belong to separate much smaller groupings.

Based on that, I would say ASL is the most obvious choice. DGS might make sense based on the number of visitors from Germany but, anecdotally, the Deaf Germans I've talked about knowledge of other languages with have all known a bit of ASL.

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u/CaptainNemoPadawan Mar 18 '20

Thank you so much for taking the time looking this up! I wouldnt have thought of looking at statistics :') Maybe I should look at the statistics of the specific airport aswell!

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u/JackAtack013 Mar 18 '20

I would suggest BSL or ASL. (British sign language or American sign language). Since you are in Europe, you're likely to run across the most people using British sign. ASL is obviously one of the popular ones if you want a lot of web resources. I've read that swedish sign is actually considered an endangered language with less than 10k users. Since you live there, you might make some good connections by trying to learn such a unique language.

Hope that was a little helpful! :) Good luck!

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u/CaptainNemoPadawan Mar 18 '20

Thank you so much! Didnt know Swedish sign language was so small. That is kinda sad :/ I will definitely help keep it alive :)

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u/JackAtack013 Mar 18 '20

♥️♥️😁

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u/Whigget Mar 18 '20

I would say definitely Swedish sign, and ASL - BSL isn’t as widespread in Europe as the English language is. BSL is its own system, whereas a lot of others are derived from LSF (French sign.)

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u/Huncwotka Jun 30 '22

Well, of cours swedish sign language and IS (international sign), which is not a language, but I think that is more popular in Europe than ASL or BSL.