Toast Song

[GMUAPhiOAdvisor]

Originally Posted by naraht

The toast song generally gets translated at every convention, and often differently each time. It depends on if you have a fluent signer who was present at an earlier convention. I did find most of the toast song signed on the 75th anniversary CD (from the choir at the 1992 convention). It appears to be somewhere between ASL and signed english. The concepts were more or less kept in the same SVO (subject verb object) order, but articles like a and the were dropped. I don't know if putting the hands into the finger spelling positions for the first letter while making the sign to differentiate similar terms from each other is normal in ASL or if it represents a nod toward SE. The 1992 convention choir clip can be pulled off the CD as a separate .mov file and I'll send it to whoever wants it. Unfortunately the camera keeps moving around so you only see about half of it. The sign for Alpha Phi Omega apparently goes back to a sign that I was told we *used* to use in our rituals. Fraternity Sign in normal place, then over heart and then outstretched, palm up.

Can you send it to me? I'd like to see what's there and then go to work on it. And then, I think what I might do over the summer (while I start my Masters, raise my 2 year old and care for an aging mother) is sit down and put the Toast Song into pure ASL, grammatically correct and everything, using the Fraternity Sign as you've described it here. Then I'll take it to a Deaf friend of mine and make sure I've got it right. From there, we can video tape it/digital tape it and pass it on to the National Office, so there can be one "Deaf Approved" version of it from here on out. As for it being signed at National Convention, who decides who gets to sign it??

Originally Posted by naraht

That sounds *somewhat* similar to some of the situations with Alpha Phi Omega (and GSS,KKY,& TBS) at HBCUs. A feeling that the *white* national doesn't understand black culture. And frankly, I think that with the local fraternities and sororities at Gally that are more than 50 years old would have to kill a pledge before getting thrown off campus due to the strong alumni ties they have. This would tend to *infect* the chapters of the Nationals with the same disregard.

You're right about the locals, I've seen some pretty ugly stuff happen and the admin turns the other way. The traditions are too strong and there's nothing that's going to change the way they work.

Originally Posted by naraht

List of Omega Omega chapter brothers would be accessible in the databasefrom the APO National Website, but you have to log in. I know that they've worked backwards from now in filling in the entries (so for example not all of the founders are in there).

I'll log in and request it.....I think I'll have to pay for this one. They've given me two free ones so.....

Originally Posted by naraht

The question is whether the current negative feelings toward expanding at Gally are more related to the fact that there are two active extension efforts in section 85 (UDC & Salisbury) or if it is something more (like the administration told the RD to sit on a flagpole and rotate)

I guess that would be a question for Jamie......Quala...you out there??? Care to chime in?

Originally Posted by naraht

Thanks. One of the reasons that I was always hesitant to look at rechartering Omega Omega is there, IMO, *has* to be a brother who signs fluently involved.

I am more than happy to help in this respect. Please remember, I'm NOT a native signer, nor am I from a Deaf family. I'm just one of the lucky few who caught onto the language and picked up near-fluency. Enough to become the 7th hearing undergrad in the school's history anyway!

Originally Posted by naraht

No clue, perhaps just different Dean of Students from time to time... Feel free if you want to share the stories.

Ahh....another time, and after, say, a couple of Guinness! And then I'm willing to tell EVERYTHING!!

Originally Posted by naraht

I guess I sort of expected that. I just can't see a mechanical device like that stimulating the auditory nerve in quite the same way that the body does. It is probably more like the good prothetic limbs with nerve connections where the person who has it just has to experiment with what nerves to activate to make it move, which probably don't like up with what used to do it with the real limb...

Yep....that's the way you have to look at it. The problem is, the docs never tell the parents that. And it's not until their child has had majorly invasive surgery where they've drilled a hole into their child's skull that they realize they still have a deaf child.....just one with a lot of extra, permanent hardware. (Can you tell I'm not a fan of CIs for kids?)

Originally Posted by naraht

You found me out, I'm actually an Omega Omega alumnus. (not) Actually, my knowledge comes from a couple of different sources... DPN (Deaf President Now) occured while I was in college and a group of friends and I tried to figure out if there was any way that students at Carnegie-Mellon would ever get involved enough in a Presidential selection process they way that DPN did (we decided no). I've been to Gally a couple of times, at one point (about 10 years ago) I was deliberately trying to visit all of the schools that I thought APO could spread to within 30 or 40 miles of my house with special emphasis on the inactive ones. I visited the library, just looking for issues of the Yearbook and the school newspaper (Buff and Blue?). And for Cochlear Implants, Wikipedia helps.

You had me going there for a split second!! It takes a very special group of people to stand up for themselves the way Deaf people do. Remember, they've been fighting Audism for so long, they've had to come to rely on themselves and others that support them, though far too few of their supporters are hearing. Me, personally, I was there for a couple of days during the whole "Jane" issue, but I had a young child and my friends knew I couldn't stay for the entire protest. I left when they locked down campus (like I said, friends on the inside who got me out through the MSSD campus). And yes, the student paper is the Buff and Blue.....I wrote for them one semester under a pseudonym. Long story)

Originally Posted by naraht

I've heard ASL refered to as a "half foreign" language and the way that the Boy Scouts deal with it for their interpreter strip seems pretty typical. For all languages, you have to have a five minute conversation, translate a two minute speech, translate 200 words from the written word and , for every language *except* ASL, write a letter in the language...

LOL...it's hard to write a language that doesn't have a written format!! Just out of curiosity, who teaches the Boy Scouts the ASL? Do they learn it from a book or from a Deaf person?

Originally Posted by naraht

It doesn't help that the supposed halfway between English and ASL, "Signed English" is treated as completely hideous. I didn't understand the thing about 3rd and 4th languages for quite some time until I realized just how different the Sign Languages were from country to country. ASL actually has more in common with the French Sign Language than the one used in the UK.

This is another story all in and of itself. The reason ASL has more in common with LSF (French Sign Language) is because the "father of ASL", Laurent Clerc, was a Deaf Frenchman. He and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, for whom the university is named, founded the first permanent school for the Deaf, the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, CT, in 1817. Clerc taught Gallaudet signs, Gallaudet taught Clerc written English on the boat journey from France to CT and those signs, coupled with the home-signs of the children in the school eventually evolved into ASL as we know it today!

As for Signed English, Signed Exact English, SEE II, LOVE, and cued speech, they may be in the continuum of English to ASL, but they have all have one fundamental difference from English and ASL.....THEY'RE NOT LANGUAGES!! They are simply man-made, created signing systems meant to "help" Deaf children learn English. They do not have any of the qualities that are attributed to naturally evolving languages, like English and ASL. I'll leave it at that for now, and we'll talk ASL Linguistics another time! LOL

Originally Posted by naraht

The question is, "Do you agree that those who sign need to learn grammar in written English?"

NEED? No, I don't think they NEED to learn written grammar in English. It does, however, make it easier for them to find jobs, and function in the hearing world they live in. But not knowing English grammar doesn't make Deaf any more or less smart than any other English speaking hearing person who takes a foreign language in school. Believe me, I took Spanish for 4 years and I can't conjugate a verb. But nobody looks at me and criticizes me for it. But a Deaf person who isn't grammatically correct in English 100% of the time is labeled "stupid" . Talk about a double edged sword!



There is a lot of mainstreaming as well...

Originally Posted by naraht

I wonder if the Deaf of Deaf kids will get to the point where a person in Dr. I King Jordan's situtation (Born hearing, lost hearing due to accident) will no longer be acceptable.

It already has become unacceptable. This was the issue with Jane Fernandez.....she calls herself Deaf, but she prefers to voice, married a hearing man and never went to a Deaf residential school. Her signing is intermediate, at best, and I can say from experience she had to ask me for clarification on a sign she'd never seen. (IRONY/SARCASM was the sign, I think) Because the DofD community has become so insular, they demanded a more "Deaf" choice for president, and their "voices" were heard!

I followed DPN10 as well...

Originally Posted by naraht

The fewer remedial classes may also be an effect of better education in the secondary schools. I'd be interested to see whether MSSD (MSSD is Gallaudet's secondary feeder school run under the same umbrella) is feeding fewer kids into the remedial classes percentagewise than the non-MSSD schools.

I think they're faced with the same situation as any other residential school. English is taught as a second language and any graduate's grasp of the grammar will depend on the effort they put into learning.

Originally Posted by naraht

Well, I would expect with the reduction in deafness due to disease that the students who became deaf prior to spoken language acquisition are much more likely to be deaf due to a genetic component. Those students at Gallaudet would be more likely to be socially together, thus *increasing* the likelihood of that gene going on to the next generation and probably also being less interested in genetic counseling that might reduce the continuance of the gene. (and that sort of counseling *can* cause reductions, Tay-Sachs is *gone* in the descendants of Eastern European jews for just that reason).

It also has a lot to do with the fact that their parents were classmates and the kids grow up together. There are still "pockets" of Deafness across the country (South Dakota has several large pockets of Deaf families living in close proximity) and they gravitate to eachother when they're college age. And, unlike when you or I would have a child, finding out their child is Deaf is cause for celebration, not a tragedy. But, sadly, the right genetics don't always find eachother and often, there are hearing kids born from these relationships, meaning there are more CODAs (Children of Deaf Adults) coming into the world, growing up thinking EVERYONE signs and often having to go through speech therapy when they reach preschool age because they've been signing all their lives and don't know how to talk properly.....this is a whole other kettle of fish!!

Originally Posted by naraht

And the fact that Gallaudet takes anyone who is HoH/Deaf with a HS diploma greatly does reduce the graduation rate, IMO.

Yup, it's true...but their standards have improved and continue to do so. I know there were several classes that I took where I felt VERY challenged, and then there were some where I never opened a book. I think it would have been the same at any other school, given the same courses.

Originally Posted by naraht

On the one hand, Gallaudet is *not* a prison. OTOH, I'm not sure if I've ever seen a college deliberately fenced off the way that Gallaudet is. Only school that seems to match it in the DC may be Georgetown, but not sure if the fence goes all the way around like Gally.

It's more to recognize the original footprint of Kendall Green, the farm that became Gallaudet. Also, it sets the school apart from the rest of the neighborhood, which is, as was mentioned in other posts, very unsafe. There seems to be an unwritten rule that the neighborhood simply leaves them alone. Also, it has to be taken into account that there is a residential high school, as well as an elementary school on the grounds, so it keeps them separated from the college kids as well. There is more than one way on and off campus, but it's become a lot tighter, security wise, since the two murders that took place in 2000-2001. But, since it was another student, it eased up a lot after that.