When I first looked at the ASL – American Sign Language iPhone app by D TechnoLabs, I stopped short of myself, with astonishment, and realized that I don’t know a single deaf person. We’ve all read the story of Helen Keller, a woman unfortunately stricken with both blindness and deafness, but in terms of any peers, in High School or College or otherwise, I have yet to interact with a deaf person. A part of me thinks this is probably a good thing, because maybe that means – if it’s not immediately apparent that I’m surrounded by people with hearing loss – it’s a small population who have to to live their lives without sound; then again, the anthropologist in me thinks it’s unfortunate, because being deaf is a culture unto itself, and obviously, nothing to be ashamed of, and I wish I wasn’t so completely ignorant when it comes to interacting with them. I know, this is teetering dangerously on that silly, razor edge of political correctness, but it’s true: I am ignorant about sign language and general communication skills, and like basic Spanish, I feel rudimentary sign language skills are tantamount.

Obviously, an iPhone app cannot replace a teacher in learning sign American Sign Language, but for simple greetings, such as how to say hello, how to introduce yourself, or ask directions, are basic survival skills that can be taught easily. Also, in some ways – not to downplay the difficulty of hand language – learning hand movements and gestures may be easier to replicate by examining visual aids, than it would be to replicate sounds based on written pronunciations. Then again, this may not be true: in a rough comparison, when learning how to perform the gestures in Harry Potter Spells, my mind often warped the visual cues by interpreting them as solely within a two-dimensional plane – I didn’t think to move in a three-dimensional sphere, or up and down, rather than forward and back, as a line’s movement would appear on paper. The same problem could be encountered in American Sign Language, but until I can test out my newfound skills on someone able to communicate in ASL, I have yet to know.

ASL – American Sign Language is divided into three sections, each containing several phrases pertinent to that section. The first is titled When a hearing person is meeting a Deaf person and contains instructions for how to sign your first and last name, how to identify yourself as hearing or deaf, how to sign where you learned sign language, and how to sign who the person/teacher was who taught you sign language. I was under the impression that ASL is a standardized language, and standard curriculum at any institute for the hearing impaired, so I was a little confused why this app would contain information how to communicate who your teacher was and from what school you hail. Perhaps it’s just that the deaf community is closely knit, and all the educational establishments are closely entwined. The second section is titled When a Deaf person is meeting someone for the first time, and is meant for you to understand what a deaf person will communicate to you – with this guide you should be able to interpret how he/she tells his first and last name; how he/she tells whether he is hearing, deaf, or hard of hearing; how he/she may ask who you know in the deaf community; and how he/she may ask, if you were deaf, what school you attended. This section is awkwardly phrased (concerning the last question: if i were deaf, i wouldn’t need this guide, and therefore that question is useless to everyone), and after reading it, I had to reevaluate how the first section differed (the first section you, the hearing, are signing, and the second section you are interpreting). At least the third section is very straightforward, titled Some useful words, and containing the following simple phrases and questions: Hello. Welcome. How are you? I am fine. Who are you? I am… (name). Happy to meet you.

Tap on any of the phrases in any of the aforementioned sections and the app will show you some drawn illustrations on how to properly execute gestures to communicate these words. For Hello, your right hand should face out toward the person to whom you are speaking, thumb in, with your four fingers resting against your temple at a slight angle, similar to a salute (only fingers/palm facing out toward other person), and then make a waving gesture out. To sign Welcome, you must curl your fingers into an approximate right angle to your palm, with the index finger resting on your forehead, then motioning down, in a half circle to below your chin, your hand naturally rotating 180 degrees so the palm faces up. You can see how visual aids can help in this process.

Some of the gestures are more complicated to decipher, and – to my disappointment – the entire ASL alphabet is missing from this app. Basic phrases are good to start communication, but when it comes to signing your name, you must know how to sign the individual letters of your name – the ASL app even instructs you to do so. Also, while the phrases in this app can certainly be useful, they can’t take you that far. Once you introduce yourself, and tell that person he’s welcome and that you’re glad to meet him, that’ll be the extent of your conversation. If he asks for the bathroom, or for a glass of water, he’ll instead have to rely on basic miming gestures we all can interpret with each – like a mouth chewing and hand rubbing belly to indicate hunger, or a tipping of the head back with an imaginary glass in hand for a drink. Though, I suppose these communication ways are just as effective for basic survival skills than for someone new at ASL to learn all the ASL gestures for these specific phrases. Still, I would like to learn how to sign my name, so hopefully ASL will include an alphabet in future updates.