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Left-handed signers?

by Jenn

Hi,

I have always had a fascination with sign language for no particular reason other than I am a very visual person. In brownies I happened upon the alphabet in the back of our workbook and took it upon myself to learn the alphabet, something I have retained to today (at 26). I have always wanted to learn more and happening upon your website has been amazing thus far. I love that I can learn at my own speed with videos and a workbook. I feel I have the time to completely master each unit before moving on to the next.

I do have one question. I am left handed and have not found any rules so far on how I have to sign lefty versus righty. I find myself instinctively doing a lot of signs backwards. Is this acceptable or no? I think it would be a problem with finger spelling since my letters would be backward to the person I would be signing to. Just wondering this and thought you would be the perfect person to ask. Thanks for your website. It is very informative - huge help. Keep up the good work.

Answer:

Hello Jenn,

Thank you for your kind comments about my site! I am so glad that you are able to benefit from it :) I am a very visual person, too, so I know exactly what you mean :)

Firstly, there are a lot of left-handed signers. There really is no difference except that your left hand is your dominant hand instead of your right hand. I touch on this a little bit in Unit 2. This is what it says:


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You have a dominant and non-dominant hand. If you are right-handed, your right hand is your dominant hand. If you are left-handed, your left hand is your dominant hand. If you are ambidextrous, choose one hand to use as your dominant hand, and stick with it.

It is important to know your dominant hand because it affects the way you will sign.

There are three types of signs when it comes to what hand you will use:

• One-handed signs
  Uses only your dominant hand.


• Two-handed symmetrical signs
  Uses both your dominant and non-dominant hand where they both move the same way


• Two-handed non-symmetrical signs
  Uses both your dominant and non-dominant hand where the dominant hand moves while the non-dominant hand remains stationary.

In the video below, I will demonstrate each type of sign. Notice which hands I use for each sign.

(VIDEO HERE)

Your non-dominant hand will never move unless your dominant hand is moving the same way. Try to move both of your hands different ways for one sign-it's really hard, and kind of funny...

Remember this, because figuring out which hand to use is difficult with more complicated signs and descriptions

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I think that pretty much explains what you need to know.

Don't worry about fingerspelling. I actually think what you said is funny because right-handed signers fingerspell from left to right and left-handed signers fingerspell from right to left. So, left-handed signers are the ones who actually fingerspell in a way that the person they are signing to can read it normally. :)

Let me know if you have any more questions :)

God bless,

Michelle Jay

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