学中国手语！

[Xiao Kui]

No matter how good your Mandarin is, there are still 20 million mainland Chinese you might have difficulty speaking, too. I was going to put this in the Non- Mandarin forum, but it's really just a silent version of Mandarin. I found this site which teaches CSL Chinese Sign Language. http://ly.deafstar.net/sign/sign/sign.html It's just the basic vocab, but it's kind of neat cause it compares Chinese with American, Japanese, and International sign language. There was a deaf school in the last neighborhood I lived in in China, so I wondered if their sign language was very different from American Sign Language, and discovered there are a lot of similarities between sign languages worldwide. One notable exception is when they use their hands to form Chinese characters, like they do to say "ren" (pretty easy to make with the hands). There's also a place where Chinese deaf like to hang out & chat www.deafstar.net so if you're literate you don't necessarily need to sign to explore this whole new culture. If anyone else knows some good sites on this subject let me know.

[in_lab]

Do you know if sign language is more or less the same throughout China, HK, Singapore, and Taiwan?

[Xiao Kui]

Actually, I'd heard of Shanghai sign language before so I did a search on it and this article came up.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-09/20/content_3515605.htm

Apparently the Chinese government has only been encouraging the deaf to learn Chinese sign language for 10 years, and many deaf can only sign in a dialect sign language. The article makes me think twice about learning the standardized one since it mentions that many people who learn it and try to translate between deaf and hearing people are unable to because some deaf only understand the regional dialects. That's too bad (and must limit travel for the deaf since interpreters in other regions can't understand their dialects) The Chinese gov't has been promoting Putonghua as the official language 50 years and many people don't speak it, but they understand it because of TV, radio, etc. - if you want to enjoy most TV you have to know it. Since there are more limited media resources for the deaf (if any) I imagine there is not as much exposure to a national language or as much motivation to learn it - just a theory. Maybe i'll learn from a deaf friend instead when i go back to China and get the dialect right so i can actually communicate.

[in_lab]

That link isn't working.

My impression is that there are more deaf people here than in the US, as a percentage of the population.

In Taiwan there is a sign language news program. Each 15-minute program starts with a little lesson in sign language. The anchor uses sign language, but the stories are subtitled with no signing. I've also seen some other shows for the deaf, but I can't remember an details.