ASL Liturgies

[ThePilgrim]

Just out of random curiosity...

Do we allow liturgies in American Sign Language? Are there any Churches that do it? Has the issue not come up yet? Would we only allow signed translation?

Thoughts?

In Christ,
John

[Khaleas]

I'm pretty sure St Nicholas in DC has signed DL now and then.

[gzt]

khaleas: but that was an interpreter signing, not, say, the priest doing it instead of vocalizing. I think he's discussing actually performing the liturgy in sign language and only in sign language. i would think it is not possible because, though sign language is a real language, the liturgy must be spoken aloud.

[Kristos]

That is an interesting question. Does the Liturgy need to be spoken out loud? Maybe loud isn't the best word - I don't think volume would matter - but does it need to be on the lips? It would seem to be very difficult for the priest to sign and hold the cup, or the gospel, or the censor, or the cross, etc, etc. The more I think about it, the priest is pretty busy with his hands and most of the time he faces the alter along with the people, so no one could see his hands anyway. Maybe the homily could be done in sign...

[Sacrum Silentium]

The homily would be fine, and I could see a tonsured reader or deacon assisting with ASL, but it'd be impossible for the priest to. He's doing enough with his hands already.

Another random thought, are there even 'gestures' for words such as seraphim, cherubim, and other words of that nature? Forgive me, I'm clueless when it comes to sign language.

[ufonium2]

You can spell things out if there aren't signs for them.

[Sacrum Silentium]

Oh, awesome. :)

I wouldn't mind learning sign language.

[Matrona]

I think you can also invent signs if they are needed. Someone on here once said that the Russian sign for "Theotokos" was a combination for the sign for God, touching one's stomach, and rocking one's arms back and forth ("baby").

[ufonium2]

My cousin was born with serious hearing problems, and grew up signing and speaking. As a young adult, being fluent in ASL opened a lot of doors for him.

As to the liturgy, though, I think you'd have to ask under what circumstances would it be necessary to sign the whole liturgy. Everything except the homily is in the service books or printed in the bulletin, probably, so I can't imagine why you would need someone signing things that people could just as easily read. I can see the homily being signed, but that's really about it.

[Sacrum Silentium]

I think you can also invent signs if they are needed. Someone on here once said that the Russian sign for "Theotokos" was a combination for the sign for God, touching one's stomach, and rocking one's arms back and forth ("baby").Very interesting!

[rusmeister]

I learned what I know via my mother's work with deaf people at the Baptisit church of my youth.

Children of a Lesser God is an awesome movie about deaf people. Good insight.

It's important to understand that it IS another language and culture, not merely mangled or disabled English. There's an area where we surely need missionaries, and a Liturgy for them!

[rusmeister]

Signing for them IS their 'oral' communication and means of relating to each other. I see a necessity for greater allowance for their needs. Simply telling them to read something is like telling us to take something home and read it. I don't believe that Orthodoxy needs to depend on sound and aural effect. We need a St Herman or Nikolai of Japan to reach out to them.

[ThePilgrim]

Oh, very much so! I've been learning ASL here in college, and it's incredibly interesting! I too used to think that it was just a visual representation of English. I had no idea that it was a completely different language, with it's own grammar and structure.

That's what made me wonder if it would be possible to do an ASL language for Deaf Orthodox people.

I think it would be hard, since the priest needs to do so much with his hands. It seems to me that there would have to be two priests, one doing the liturgy and some of the prayers in a spoken language, and the other signing some of it for the people.

Thoughts?

Grace and peace,
John

[MariaRegina]

Several students at my university are studying American Sign Language along with Japanese.

Both languages have an SOV structure.
Dog cat chases.

This history of ASL is also very interesting as a French Catholic Priest promoted the learning of sign language in France (hence its SOV structure) and then it was brought to the United States and taught here.

That is why there is some discrepancy when a person is translating while talking simultaneously. It is impossible to talk in an SVO language while signing in an SOV language.

[kamikat]

There is a big difference in translation and in ASL. I used to be fluent in ASL. I took it for 6 years, in middle and high school. In my high school, it qualified as the foreign language credit. You generally carry on a converstation in ASL, but translate in signed English. Signed English follows English grammer and sentence structure.

[ufonium2]

Signing for them IS their 'oral' communication and means of relating to each other. I see a necessity for greater allowance for their needs. Simply telling them to read something is like telling us to take something home and read it.

I have to disagree. I agree that it is their "oral" mode of communication, obviously, but I disagree that the Liturgy is a situation in need of being signed. The Liturgy follows a "script," for the most part--it's not a dynamic, conversational setting that requires instant translation. I would liken it to a deaf person watching a movie. Subtitles are fine--I doubt they need, and I seriously doubt they would want, signing going on off to the side instead of printed words.

I would also liken it to one English-speaker attending an otherwise all-Greek parish, where the liturgy is entirely in Greek, but in the pew there's a service book with side-by-side Greek and English. If I were that one English-speaking person, I wouldn't want another priest up there repeating everything in English just for me. I would probably die of embarrassment, rather than feel included.

I'm not deaf, so I can't claim to know how a deaf person feels about this. But considering that deaf people read signs, newspapers, books, subtitles, etc. all the time, I can't imagine the lack of a real-time signing of the Liturgy is what is keeping any deaf person from Orthodoxy.

[kamikat]

I disagree. Reading the liturgy in English while it's being conducted in Greek is not the same. When I used to go to Latin mass, the only Latin mass offered in my area was the low mass. This means most of the mass is in inaudible prayer from the priest to the Lord. The only audible parts of the mass were the readings and the homily. I would sit and read the missilette, but was never the same place as the priest. It would always surpise me when the other parishioners got up for communion. Even if you are reading the liturgy in English, you know when the choir keeps repeating "kyrie eleison", they're probably doing a litany, so you can flip in the book and trying to keep up. A deaf person might not have cues at all to help him follow along in the book.

[rusmeister]

I fully understand what you're saying, ufo, and I agree on "embarassment...just for me". But as a native English speaker living in Russia and attending Russian only services I can tell you that I sure appreciate anything that I can get in my own language. English for them is always a foreign language, even if those that live in English-speaking countries can read and maybe even write it well.

Orthodoxy has always ultimately gone native. I'm currently reading an issue of a Russian Orthodox mag 'Foma' (reference to doubting Thomas) about Orthodoxy in Japan http://www.foma.ru/articles/issues/17/ (sorry - Russian only!) - I can tell you that St Nicholas of Japan wouldn't have gotten very far by insisting on Russian. Assuming that deaf people are part of our culture is a misunderstanding of the deaf.

[zhilan]

I remember at my high school they had a club/class on ASL and the instructor was an interpreter. She said how early in her career she had a job as a translator for a Christian service. Throughout the service of course there was a lot of talking about Jesus dying for our sins and Jesus saving us from our sins, etc. She noticed that people looked sort of confused but she didn't know why. Finally she realized that she was doing the sign for "sin" backwards, instead of moving away from her face she was moving towards it, thus telling the people at the service that "Jesus died for their spaghetti!!" :doh:^_^

[MariaRegina]

Languages can be funny.

In Taiwan, a Catholic Priest had just built a church and was dedicating it.

So he thought that he had said, "Hoist the flag."

Instead he said, "Put my wife on the roof."

The Chinese were trying very hard to be polite and not laugh. They placed their hands over their mouths, but their shaking shoulders gave them away.

[Sacrum Silentium]

rofl! That's hilarious!

[Monica, child of God]

My sponsor is deaf and I often stand with the deaf when we have a translator for services. I will have to ask her whether she sees the need for an all ASL DL. She is also a linguist at Galludet and is working on signs for things Orthodox. For example, the current standart ASL sign for liturgy is the same as the sign for mass: you hold your hands together in front of you as though you were elevating a host as in an RC Mass. Obviously this does not have the same sort of organic meaning to Orthodox, Oriental or other liturgical forms of Christianity, so a new sign is being developed. It may be the position of the priest's (or deacon's) hands when he says "Thine own of thine own..."

When she was inquiring into Orthodoxy, she went to a small parish and the priest allowed her to come to the iconostasis periodicly and see where he was so that she could learn the liturgy.

M.

[MariaRegina]

Dear Monica,

Please keep me posted about your Linguist friend at Galludet. It is awesome to be participating in the development of a language, which is a gift from the Eternal Word of God.

My prayers for her success.

[Monica, child of God]

She is really cool. She is working on her dissertation on the subject of emergent sign language in different populations. So she has been to Vietnam, Cambodia, different countries in the Middle East, Turkey etc. to study and meet with deaf people there and study their sign language. She speaks fluent Spanish and teaches course at Galludet.

If I ever have time in my academic program, I plan to take some courses in sign myself. I would love to be able to communicate with her in her own language.

M.

[ufonium2]

I went to school with a guy who was deaf, but because we were in a rural area, and his family wasn't too thrilled at the prospect of shipping him across the state to boarding school, he didn't learn ASL growing up. He signed, but it was like a secret language his family had gradually created as needed. His sister would interpret for him at school. It was the kind of situation you wouldn't think still existed in 1990's America, but then again, we had "party line" phones until probably 1989.

[rusmeister]

Good stories. The main thing is if we insist on thinking of English as their 'native' language - one they don't speak in but only read and write, we don't understand their problem. SEE (Signing Exact English) exists to translate our language into their 'oral' speech, but it's different from ASL.

I have the Russian manual alphabet, but don't have any other materials of any kind.