Sign Language

New Zealand Sign Language Week: 6th- 12th May

debbie

This week is New Zealand Sign Language week. It is a good chance for us to learn what life is like for those people who have hearing loss and to help raise awareness for the New Zealand Deaf Community.

New Zealand Sign Language is one of our official languages and is unique to New Zealand. It includes signs for Maori terminology and concepts that you will not find in the sign language of other countries. Sign languages are different all over the world and even in New Zealand people in Wellington may sign slightly differently to people in Christchurch.

One in six New Zealanders have some form of hearing loss and there are thousands of New Zealanders that use NZSL everyday.

Head on over to the Deaf Aotearoa website where there are some great resources and you can check out events happening in your area.

The library also has books on learning NZSL plus books about children who have hearing loss and what life is like for them.


World’s toughest tongue twister

admin

Forget ‘she sells sea shells on the sea shore’, a new tongue twister has been named as the worlds toughest.

Here it is (try to say is 10 times without making a mistake):

‘pad kid poured curd pulled cold’

A tongue-twister is a phrase that is purposefully designed to be difficult to say properly. Did you know that there is a sign-language equivalent of a tongue-twister? It’s called a finger-fumbler and is a series of signs that are difficult for hands to manage in sequence.  The phrase ‘good blood, bad blood’ is an example of a finger-fumbler and a tongue twister.

This new tough tongue twister was designed as a research experiment by psychologists who were trying to find out about the brain’s speech-planning process. Most participants in the study couldn’t say it 10 times, some even clammed up and stopped speaking altogether, and others just lost control of their mouths.

Looking for some more phrases to twist your tongue around? Try these:

New Zealand Sign Language Week 30th April – 6th May

debbie

New Zealanders will be celebrating New Zealand Sign Language this week to help raise awareness of the New Zealand Deaf Community.

Did you know that New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) is one of our official languages and is unique to New Zealand. It includes signs for Maori terminology and concepts which you will not find in the sign language of other countries. There are hundreds of sign languages used around the world and they will all be different. There can even be a difference in sign language within New Zealand. For instance people in Auckland may sign slightly differently to people in Wellington.

One in six New Zealanders have some form of hearing loss and there are about 24,000 New Zealanders who use NZSL everyday.

You might like to check out the Deaf Aotearoa website where they have lots of information about NZSL. You can learn how to finger spell the alphabet or you might like to attend a free taster class in your area.

The library also has some books and DVD’s on learning NZSL or you might like to read about kids who have a hearing loss and what life is like for them.