Where American Sign Language Outshines English
Language is something that I enjoy geeking out over from time to time, especially after having worked as an interpreter for many years.
All languages are capable of transferring complex ideas and feelings, but some are more efficient than others for communicating ideas about certain topics or handling specific situations. American Sign Language, for example, uses structures called CLASSIFIERS that give it a major advantage over English in certain situations. Classifiers very quickly embed multiple layers of descriptive meaning around nouns and verbs. This makes the visual language much more efficient at transferring highly detailed descriptions.
In this video, Courtney and Lance Hall from Washington DC explain how classifiers are used every day by sign language users. Notice how the interpreters have to speed up the English to keep up when Lance and Courtney get descriptive.
Thank you to Adam Maynard for providing the English interpretation and voiceover for Lance and to Marina Saenz for providing the voiceover for Courtney.
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