Note: I’m writing every day in November, see my blog for disclaimers.
Sign languages[1] are interesting to me because they use a fundamentally different medium of communication: sight instead of sound. Generally, sign languages are ignored by those who can speak and who don’t have to communicate with deaf people. But I believe they have utility beyond communicating with deaf people because it’s common to be in a place where you want to communicate but it’s either too loud or too far to do so via speech. Some examples:
In a coworking space or library where the room is silent, you could use sign language to ask a question to someone nearby, or to ask a question across the room without disturbing anyone
In a meeting or during a talk you could similarly ask & answer questions without interrupting the meeting. This might be particularly useful to check in with peers in real time, as the meeting is happening
high-end service workers or organisers could use a sign language to convey logistical information (“we’re running out of X”, “is the next speaker ready?”, etc) without disrupting the event that they’re facilitating
Across a large distances such as a football field or from atop tall buildings, you could use a sign language to communicate without having to walk within earshot (although admittedly the clarity of the signs will degrade with distance)
In a bar, you could use sign language to tell your order to the bartender without having to shout above the music
Beyond sign languages utility in isolation, sign language also has utility in that it can provide redundancy to the spoken word. This is useful when communicating important information in noisy environments, such as the size of a bill at a loud restaurant, or possibly just for emphasis of an important point.
As far as I see, the main downside to learning a sign language is the lack of people to speak with! This seems like a fun hobby for a couple or friend group to pick up, since I imagine there’d be benefit if the people you see most often all speak a sign language together. I also imagine that I’m missing some benefits that only become apparent after actually using sign language as an auxiliary means of communication for some time.
- ^
there are multiple different sign languages
You need to compare opportunity costs. It’s easy to name some thing you want to do, whether learn sign language or anything else, and list the ways you could benefit if you did it. But those benefits could be rare and weak to the point where just about any other use of your time would serve you better. How often have you had problems communicating a bill in a noisy restaurant, and how much time did you lose by having to settle it without using sign language?
(Also, if those things are really problems, have you considered text messaging? If they’re not big enough problems for you to fix by using text messaging now, why do you consider them big enough problems that you should learn sign language to fix them?)
This is a fair point. An assumption I had (but forgot to include in the post) was that most english-speaking schools spend several years teaching children a non-english second language, and very few kids come out of it speaking that language. So sign language could be a better default second-language to teach to kids.
I’m not super convinced that things would be better if everyone spent those years learning sign language, nor do I think that learning sign language would be magically more likely to stick than a spoken language. But I do think that sign language has some interesting possibilities due to the different medium of communication, and I rarely (if ever) see this brought up.
Another use of non-spoke communication
https://x.com/i/status/2072725894523728262