Hazel, a.k.a. UbOtDDstarL

November 19, 2014 8:23 AM

A Deaf couple in Great Britain has successfully fought for the right to include the British Sign Language notation of their child's name on her birth certificate.
posted by Etrigan (19 comments total)

Excellent.
posted by MartinWisse at 8:25 AM on November 19, 2014

Burying the lede: The dad's name is Tomato!
posted by 256 at 8:26 AM on November 19, 2014 [10 favorites]

This is very cool, but also came in here to ask if the father's name is really Tomato.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:28 AM on November 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

(Just wanted to add that these parents are awesome and good on them and that's the most important thing. But, really? Tomato?)
posted by 256 at 8:30 AM on November 19, 2014

His name is actually an index finger drawn down along the center of the mouth and then used to tap the other index finger, at least in ASL.
posted by maxsparber at 8:30 AM on November 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

Tomato, an index finger drawn down along the center of the mouth and then used to tap the other index finger, let's call the whole thing off.
posted by MartinWisse at 8:33 AM on November 19, 2014 [32 favorites]

Maxsparber: That's a very good point.
posted by 256 at 8:37 AM on November 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

BSL and ASL are unrelated languages with very different vocabularies, though - in BSL it's making a twisting gesture in front of your body with your non-dominant hand with your fingers bunched.

Maybe "An index finger drawn down along the center of the mouth and then used to tap the other index finger, twisting gesture in front of your body with your non-dominant hand with your fingers bunched, let's call the whole thing off!" scans better in signed languages though.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 8:42 AM on November 19, 2014 [8 favorites]

I didn't know British Sign had a written form that was commonly used. The transcription in the video for the baby's name is "UbOtDDstarL".

Does anyone here know more about writing systems for signed languages? I vaguely know about Stokoe Notation for American Sign, but that's more of a linguistics tool than a colloquial thing. If someone wants to tweet in a signed language, what do they type?
posted by Nelson at 8:46 AM on November 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

This is a great story. I also like how baby Hazel UbotDDStarL yawns in the middle as if she's bored with her parents telling this story again.
posted by chavenet at 9:16 AM on November 19, 2014

Neat! I think diversity in language is important as different languages can actually encompass different ways of thinking so I am all for giving more exposure and all the rights to more languages.
posted by Poldo at 9:31 AM on November 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

Poldo: "Neat! I think diversity in language is important as different languages can actually encompass different ways of thinking so I am all for giving more exposure and all the rights to more languages."

Anything but a very weak form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is actually totally discredited.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:26 AM on November 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

@nelson re writing systems / notations for sign language: take a look at SLIPA and links from there.
posted by saizai at 10:28 AM on November 19, 2014

@joakim ziegler: I wouldn't call cogpsych's version (priming etc) "very weak".

Very strong versions are obviously false (cf. the color experiments), but there's a very wide range left for influence of language on thought and behavior, many effects of which have been proven to be robust.
posted by saizai at 10:30 AM on November 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

saizai: "@joakim ziegler: I wouldn't call cogpsych's version (priming etc) "very weak"."

I'm not familiar with cognitive psychology's version of it. I do know basically all linguists reject it more or less completely.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:33 AM on November 19, 2014

@joakim ziegler: Reject *strong* Sapir-Whorf, yes: people are clearly *capable* of thinking about and distinguishing things for which they do not have words (or do not have distinct words).

But "weak" Sapir-Whorf is really rather strong under any reasonable metric.

It's just not to the point of "this is not even possible to think about", which is what "strong" SW means.

(FWIW, my academic background is social neuroscience & cognitive science, including cognitive linguistics.)
posted by saizai at 10:50 AM on November 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

I liked this overview of ASL writing systems. Seems like there's several choices, no consensus. SignWriting is going in to Unicode 8 next year, that's a very visual non-Roman system. Here's an example Wikipedia page in SignWriting.

Still curious about this BSL transcription, is that writing system in common usage? My impression after a casual look is none of the ASL transcriptions are used commonly. I couldn't find anything non-academic about British Sign but I didn't look very hard.
posted by Nelson at 11:13 AM on November 19, 2014

This thread: ASL, BSL, onomastics, Rights of Minorities, Human Rights in GB/EU, and this family's oddities.

Sapir-Whorf opinions: Please move to the already established, permanent subthread under the Apple/PC thread.
posted by IAmBroom at 12:16 PM on November 19, 2014

I am currently doing a ASL minor. My (Deaf) professor prefers to use GLOSS along with transcription symbols to teach us ASL grammar, as she considers SignWriting to be too complicated for that purpose. In everyday life, I believe she uses English to text and email other Deaf people whenever a videophone or similar is not available.
posted by cobain_angel at 2:37 PM on November 19, 2014 [1 favorite]