[Eureka] Meaningful Gestures

[Dandelion]

10 Cylus 722

Dan set up for the lessons in Common Sign in the Inn. Sight lines mattered for signing - if you couldn't see what the other person was saying, you couldn't respond to it. That meant that multiple rows of seats were out of the question. Instead, he set out a part-circle of chairs and stools so that everyone involved could see everyone else.

He borrowed one of the blackboards more commonly used for writing menus on and wrote the set up information on it: 'Please take a seat and make sure you can see everyone as well as this board. If you have questions, write or sign them.'

Below it, he wrote out the alphabet. He planned to begin with finger-spelling, on the grounds that at least the adults could then spell out anything they didn't know the sign for. (Lily was another matter, unfortunately) Finger-spelling was slower and clumsier and not as simple as more fluent signing, but it was, at least, a way to communicate. He'd add in some basic signs later in the lesson.

If he got that far. If the impulse that had made him offer lessons and his innate stubborness (The same stubbornness that got him through rough Cylus's spent alone, that pushed him on through the harder parts of living in the wild) that had driven him to go through with the offer and turn it into this too real thing didn't let him down. He bit his lip, and shoved his hands in his pockets, trying to hold back the fear that he should have got someone else to do this, someone who knew how to talk out loud too. Someone who could explain things to those learning. But it was too late for that.

He slid into the chair nearest the blackboard and waited to see if anyone would turn up.


"Signed words" Spoken words

[Faith Augustin]

Meaningful Gestures.

Life, Death

&

The In-Between

Faith arrived early.

She wanted to do that because she wanted to make sure that Dan had everything he might need, and also because she well remembered the first time she taught. She'd been more than nervous, her nerves had taken on an almost physical reality. Alissa, her bodyguard and friend, walked next to her and the pair of them shared a silent companionship as they made their way. As they walked, Faith glanced at Alissa. "What's the sign for 'Good luck'?" Faith asked. Alissa showed her, slowly and carefully. Faith watched, copied, and then practiced. "Thank you," she said and then the two of them entered.

Dan had set the place up and Faith looked at it and felt a swell of pleasure. He'd thought about things, she was pleased to see. He'd considered that people needed to be able to see, that there might be a need for a chalk board, that kind of thing. She looked around and a smile lit up her face. "It's looking good," she said, Alissa nodded in agreement. "If it helps you, Alissa can assist you - speak what you sign to the people coming. There's going to be about ten or twelve, I think. Maybe more." Faith hoped that she didn't cause him more anxiety when she added, "People seemed very keen. Is there a maximum number?"


Whatever Dan wanted to do, Faith took a seat and made sure that she could in fact see the board. He had put the alphabet up there and Faith wondered if that was where he was going to start. With the letters. That made sense to her, as she thought about it - then at the very least they would all be able to spell out words. She guessed that was a lot more time consuming - and tricky for some - than the ability to have one sign for a word. It was her hope that soon everyone in the settlement would be able to sign - that it would be the same as all of them speaking Common. It was important, after all, that everyone was included. As people started to come in - and there were quite a few - she caught Dan's eye and signed to him the sign Alissa had taught her. As she signed it, she spoke the words, so that her lips formed them.

Good luck

Then, she sat back and waited to learn. This was his class and here, she was his student, so she sat and attended to him.

10th Cylus, 722

[Dandelion]

Well, Dan thought with a sort of relief as Faith appeared in the doorway, he was going to have at least one person to teach. That was something. He gave her a nervous but grateful smile as she explained that Alissa could translate if it would help, and nodded. "It might," he said, his signs a little clipped with worry. "Thank you."

It wasn't his first time teaching - not even his first teaching a group - since he had taught some of the settlers here how to make fish traps. But it was more formal, less practical, and - meant more than he could easily explain. (How did you explain, across languages, to someone who had never had that problem, that finding people who were this willing to learn, who were this willing to be the ones to cross the gap instead of making him do all the work of it, felt like the sun coming up on the first of Ashan, after a Cylus that felt like a cold, dark, lifetime?)

More of them were trickling in now, and he caught Faith's wishes of good luck and took a slow deep breath. Eventually, there were ten people sitting on the chairs, including Faith and Alissa. Dan waited a moment longer, but no one else seemed to be coming, so he stood up, drawing all eyes to him, and went to stand by the blackboard. He kept his signs simple. "Hello," he told them. "My name is Dandelion. I'm here to teach you some basics of Common Sign. We will start with the alphabet." He went through it slowly, pointing the letter and then demonstrating the sign for it. He began with the vowels, each represented by a finger of the left hand (A by the thumb, E by the index finger, and so on round), and then the more complex consonants.

Then, to put it into practical terms, he had each of them work out how to fingerspell their name, demonstrated how to sign, "My name is..." and had them go around the circle introducing themselves, in Sign. He kept an eye on them and wrote a handful more words on the board.

Please. Thank you. Hello. Goodbye. Come here. Go there. Show me.

The last one was also one of the few spoken phrases he knew, and it had helped him a lot. He suspected that it would be just as helpful coming from the other side of the language divide.



"Signed words" Spoken words

[Faith Augustin]

Meaningful Gestures.

Life, Death

&

The In-Between

It was intriguing, Faith decided, to think about language. How language worked, the structure of it. Behind the barriers at the edge of the world she had tried to learn a little of their language. It had been an endeavour with mixed results but she had enjoyed it and, now here she was learning Common Sign. It was structured, as a language, in the same way that Common was, but she was interested in the differences. The basic signs he taught were interesting and Faith committed them to memory. It was strange, though, she thought. When learning a language, one learned the word but this was different. She knew the word - she could hear it in her head as she thought about it. But this was about muscle memory.

Looking down at her hands as she tried to get her fingers to do what she wanted them to, Faith considered how muscle memory worked and she concentrated on the fine details. It would be important that her movements were accurate now, as that meant that there would be no need to unlearn any mistakes or retrain herself out of bad habits later. She signed her name, carefully, when it was time to do so. That posed an interesting question for her - her name was a word that was used in daily life. Once she learned that sign, would she sign her name as the word, or spell out her name each time. She wondered that but did not ask just yet, because she didn't want to derail the class, and she knew that Dan was nervous.

So, she spelled out her name and practiced the signs. She did ask one question, however. "I am left handed," she said, holding up her dominant left hand. Because it was good practice, she spelled out the words, too, in order to help get them in to her brain. "Do I sign the same, or reflected?" She wondered then, how one did punctuation like question marks and so on and she caught Alissa's eye. Her biqaj friend and bodyguard gave a slight smile - for she knew Faith very well and she knew that Faith probably had a hundred questions, but was restraining herself. When one of the settlers nodded. "I'm left handed too", Faith smiled. That was good - that meant that her question was useful for more than just herself and that was important to her.

All eyes turned to Dandelion, waiting for his reply.

10th Cylus, 722

[Dandelion]

Dan had to stop and think for a long moment before he could answer Faith's question. "Either works," he told them, at last, "as long as you're consistent. Switching hands in mid conversation tends to create confusion, so decide which you find easiest and most comfortable and stick to it." He took a breath under the weight of so many eyes staring at him, and added, "Most left handed people prefer to reflect their signs, but it isn't compulsory." There was a smell of baking bread in the air, drifting out from the Inn's kitchen, and it clung to his tongue.

He gave them time to try out both versions if they wanted to, moving around the circle, and correcting some of the other settlers as they fumbled their way through the signs. He ate this morning, he knows he did, in spite of his nerves. He's lived on scant or uncertain rations almost all his life - from the careful rations at the orphanage that were never enough to leave him satisfied, to all the arcs of having to hunt and gather his own food, which means rarely being certain what he'll eat, or how much of it there will be until it's actually on his plate - far too long not to eat food when it's right there in front of him, no matter how nervous he feels. But now the nerves are beginning to wear off, his hunger is spiking again, spurred on by the smell of bread - yeast bread! - in his nose and on his tongue.

He tamped it down as best he could, and calmed his face, if not his feelings, before he finally came back to the front and began to go through the new phrases on the board. He had them repeat each one a few times, and then demonstrated how to join them to one another so that they could give each other simple directions, by calling them up one by one with a "Come here, please, [Name]" and then, "Show me 'hello'," and, "Thank you, go there," as an indication to return to their seat.


"Signed words" Spoken words

[Faith Augustin]

Meaningful Gestures.

Life, Death

&

The In-Between

It was intriguing to Faith, watching other people teach. She was sure that Dan would leave this session with a lot of ideas about how he, as a teacher, functioned. There was theory and learning to be had about the art of teaching, of course, but Faith believed that the best way to learn it was to do it. That was her belief about teaching, anyhow, although not so much about medicine. Still, Dan was doing a good job as far as Faith was concerned. He took her question well, considering it and then he answered it clearly. There was no indication that she shouldn't have asked the question, and he was sure and clear in his answer which he had obviously thought about. Faith felt heard, and that was important.

"Thank you," she said, signing the same as she said it, once he had answered her question. It made sense and being consistent was the most important thing. They moved on to the next thing, which was more about being able to begin a conversation. It was basic (which was good) but they were then able to begin to interact. That was a very good thing, because Faith knew that was what they all wanted to do. So, she watched as Dan began that process. Putting words together to begin to form sentences was interesting and Faith nodded as she listened, taking it in.

The wafting smell of bread was enough to cause a few tummy rumbles and Faith smiled at that. There were beautiful aromas coming from the kitchen and that made people sit up and pay attention. She did as she was asked, she focused on concentrated as Dan called her up, asked her to show him particular signs and then directed her back to her seat. She made sure to sign and say thank you and good bye, and then, when it was once again time for questions, Faith raised her hand.

"Show me, 'I am hungry', please?" Faith asked - and signed what she could. For "hungry", she rubbed her stomach in a round and round manner, but she also said the word. It was interesting, Faith thought, because doing things with your hands - things like eating, or carrying something - would render one anable to sign. That must be a very real issue for those who were hard of hearing and she considered then that maybe what they needed to do here was to have ingenius ways to carry things with wrist-straps and so on, which would allow people to let go of the straps just for the purpose of signing and then, when no longer signing, to hold them again. Just having something held by the wrist was not ideal, so doing it so that things could be let go of, but still carried in the short term, would be best.

Her mind was ticking over as she watched Dan and she savoured the smell of the bread and other savouries which were coming through the window. Faith enjoyed the regularity of things here; more and more Eureka was becoming home. There were other things, of course, things between her and Padraig and their family which were not alright but Faith wasn't thinking about that right now. Right now, she was putting her emotions into her hands and focusing on learning to sign.

When the lesson was over, Faith was going to speak to Dan, she decided. She wanted to check if he'd come to the kitchens with her at a convenient time for him, and help her with the signs for the tools and techniques of cooking. She thought that maybe if she and he did some gardening and some cooking together, she could teach him those and he could teach her the signs. That would help them both and would help the young girl who needed to be understood to fit in to Eureka as well as possible. It was, Faith had concluded, a win-win and so, when things were finished, that was exactly what she would ask.

10th Cylus, 722

[Doran]

Faith:

Knowledge:
Linguistics x 5
Socialisation x 3

Loot: -
Lost: -
Wealth: -
Injuries: -
Renown: 5
Magic XP: -
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Points: 15

Dandelion:

Knowledge:
Cooking: yeast bread
Logistics: eat when you can, sleep when you can
Discipline: second guessing yourself
Teaching: start with the very basics
Teaching: setup matters too
Teaching: answer questions thoroughly
Teaching: ask students to demonstrate their knowledge
Teaching: setting practical tasks

Loot: -
Lost: -
Wealth: -
Injuries: -
Renown: 5
Magic XP: -
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Points: 15

- - -

Comments: This was a very interesting thread. I’ve never read a sign language lesson in ST before. I’m impressed by how thorough Dan is. He doesn’t only consider the challenges involved in a sign language lesson, but also realizes that starting by teaching people finger-spelling would be a good idea. This lesson went exactly how I imagined a sign-language lesson to go!

I love how Faith empathized with Dan and remembered how nervous she’d been when she’d taught for the first time – and how she asked Alissa how to sign “Good luck” so that she could tell Dan that. It seems as if she’s starting to develop an interest in linguistics!

I didn’t know that she’s left-handed, by the way!

I can’t help but wonder if Faith will invent something that enable people to carry things and still sign – and if Common Sign is the same everywhere in Idalos, or if people have accents or styles depending on their location, their ethnicity and so on, just like in our world.

With that being said, enjoy your rewards!