![]() ![]() And so we needed a sign that didn't only reflect wealth because wealth isn't the only form of privilege somebody can have. But over time, we needed a sign to reflect a different type of privilege because our society has talked more and more about different social privileges such as, you know, male privilege, white privilege, that kind of thing. It was, like, used a lot to refer to having wealth and that being a form of privilege. So one of the older signs for privilege - it was sort of supposed to evoke the image of putting a dollar into a shirt pocket.ĬHANG: To connote that privilege means more money. It got an update in a very, like, multidimensional way. MORRIS: So it's really interesting to see these conversations evolve about what should this sign look like.ĬHANG: You know, I was particularly struck by another example. Why don't we have a sign for phone that looks like you're texting or something like that? Who knows? I mean, there's even some deaf people who have talked about, well, you know, why are we holding up the cellphone to our cheek? We don't even use cellphones that way. And now I'm wondering if the sign for a phone is going to evolve into, like, earbuds. And that's how a lot of younger deaf people sign it.ĬHANG: Right. A lot of people hold their smartphones - you know, you kind of cup your hand around it, and you put it against your cheek. But now we've got smartphones, and you definitely do not hold your smartphone that way. And when you do that, your hand kind of makes this Y shape.ĬHANG: Like a hang loose symbol, where your pinky is near your mouth and your thumb is near your ear. Picture the ones where you had a little dial, like a rotary phone, you know, and you would hold up their handle to your ear. Eventually, telephones became hand-held with a receiver. ![]() But then over time, the sign completely changed. So the old sign for telephone has you doing one fist below your chin and another fist next to your ear, actually showing you holding these different parts of the telephone. MORRIS: So the sign exactly reflected that. But you know the ones that you hold with one hand and then you put the receiver up to your ear with the other hand? I was going to say, I don't know if you've got one of these in your grandmother's house or something. It's actually a really interesting sign because 100 years ago, the word for telephone in American Sign language looked like an old-fashioned telephone. Can you talk about that? - because it is so cool how that sign has evolved. Like, let's take the example for the word telephone. So, you know, unlike adding a new word such as selfie in a dictionary, your reporting reminds us about how new signs are evolving for existing words. Welcome.ĪMANDA MORRIS: Thank you so much for having me.ĬHANG: Well, thank you for being with us. She's an ASL user, and she conducted many of the interviews for her story in sign language. Morris is a child of deaf adults, or CODA for short. And, you know, just as new technology and culture are constantly pushing the English language to grow and evolve, the same thing is happening with American Sign Language, or ASL, as Amanda Morris wrote about recently in The New York Times. ![]() ![]() In 2014, the Oxford English Dictionary, perhaps the most authoritative English dictionary, was compelled to add the word selfie to its pages. ![]()
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