Secretly Incredibly Fascinating: Sign Languages

Episode notes

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore why sign languages are secretly incredibly fascinating.

Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week’s bonus episode.

LINKS FOR KATIE GOLDIN:

• Katie Goldin on Twitter
• @ProBirdRights
• ‘Creature Feature’ podcast (iHeartRadio)
• When Is a Bird a ‘Birb’? An Extremely Important Guide (Audubon)

RESOURCES USED TO INFORM THE EPISODE’S LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

• native-land.ca
• U.S. Department Of Arts And Culture
• The True Native New Yorkers Can Never Truly Reclaim Their Homeland (Smithsonian)
• “Finding Lenapehoking” (YouTube / Hudson River Maritime Museum)
• Why Do They Call It Beacon? (The Highlands Current)
• Dutch & Native American Heritage In The Hudson River Valley (National Park Service)

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Forbidden Signs: American Culture and the Campaign against Sign Language by Douglas C. Baynton
• 1,000 Signs of Life: Basic ASL for Everyday Conversation by The Editors of Gallaudet University Press
• Seeing Voices by Oliver Sacks
• How a Visual Language Evolves as Our World Does (The New York Times)
• This Is How New Words Enter the Vernacular of ASL (Smithsonian SmartNews)
• United States Census Bureau: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Language Use — “The three questions used on the American Community Survey (ACS) to capture languages spoken and English-speaking ability are not designed to identify American Sign Language (ASL) users. The current question design supports the 1975 amendment to the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination against specific language minorities when voting. The enforcement of the Voting Rights Act is focused on non-English, non-ASL languages that are used by members of racial and ethnic minority groups. Due to the way data are currently collected, we are not able to provide separate data about ASL use.”
• To Young Brains, Language Is Language, Whether Signed or Spoken (UConn Today)
• YouTube upload of examples of “sign babbling”
• Scientists discover wild baby parrots babble like human babies (CBC Radio “Quirks and Quarks”)
• The Hidden History of Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language (Atlas Obscura)
• How Deaf Children in Nicaragua Created a New Language (Atlas Obscura)
• There’s a Philly Sign Language Accent (Smithsonian SmartNews)
• How ‘water’ became ‘wooder’, the evolution of the Philly accent (The Philadelphia Inquirer / YouTube)
• The Lost Secret Sign Language of Sawmill Workers (Atlas Obscura)
• The Power of Storytelling: Reflections on Deaf Culture and American Sign Language (Folklife Magazine)
• From inventing the huddle to trying a new helmet, Gallaudet is home to a proud football tradition (The Associated Press)
• Harvard-Yale football: Memorable moments, all-time history (NCAA)
• History of the Forward Pass (The Biletnikoff Award)
• CT State Library: “Connecticut’s Nicknames”