this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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I assume there must be a reason why sign language is superior but I genuinely don't know why.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Most of my girlfriend's family is deaf. They read fairly slowly and end up usually not really following subtitles very easily. Sign language is fastest for them to understand.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I've heard that because written English is phonetic - meaning it shows how the sounds are (approximately) - then for people who have always been deaf that doesn't make the same sense, and reading words is a bit like reading a bunch of telephone numbers and remembering what they mean.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I.e. the same as a programming language, which can be easily learned to be read at astounding speed... Also, written English is one of the least phonetic languages you could possibly find.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Not really. You can still sound out the phonemes in a programming language. Perhaps if the whole thing were perl memes. And while I agree English orthography is a mess, for "not phonetic" it holds no candle to Chinese.

Maybe Chinese is a better comparison, I hadn't thought of that.