Day of the sign language interpreter was established in January 2003 at the initiative of the Central Board of the All-Russian Society of the Deaf. The All-Russian Public Organization of the Disabled "All-Russian Society of the Deaf" (VOG) is the largest and oldest public organization of the hearing impaired in Russia, founded in 1926.

The purpose of the Day of the sign language interpreter is to draw public attention to the problems of the deaf. For comparison, if in Finland there are 300 sign language interpreters for every thousand deaf people, then in Russia there are only three. And over time, the number of sign language interpreters is only getting smaller. At the same time, the work of a sign language interpreter is invaluable in social terms for the deaf community, because he is needed in court, the police, the tax office, for social protection, at the doctor's office and so on.

Usually, sign language interpreters are children of deaf parents who grew up in a “deaf” environment. You can get an education in this specialty in the training centers of St. Petersburg and Moscow.

The language that sign language interpreters “speak” from the screen or with their clients is sign language, and several million people around the world communicate in it. In some countries, it has long been officially recognized and is used to adapt news programs and various programs for people with hearing problems.

By the way, on October 24, the State Duma of the Russian Federation in the first reading adopted a bill raising the status of Russian Sign Language. Thanks to amendments to the laws "On Education" and "On the Social Protection of Disabled Persons in the Russian Federation", Russian Sign Language is now defined as the language of communication in the presence of hearing or speech impairments, including in the areas of oral use of the state language of the Russian Federation.

The special significance of this bill is that the official recognition of the status of Russian sign language will create the necessary conditions in educational institutions for the education of deaf people using sign language, build a system of training and retraining of teachers on the basis of secondary and higher professional educational institutions, according to the website VOGinfo.ru.

How to communicate with a person in the language of the deaf?

sign language

First, one of the major misconceptions about sign languages ​​is that they are dependent on or derived from spoken languages ​​(sound and written) and that these languages ​​were invented by hearers. This is wrong. Secondly, dactyling of letters is often taken for sign languages ​​- that is, when the letters are “depicted” by hands.

The difference between dactylology and sign language, which the deaf communicate with each other, is that dactylology is used mainly for pronouncing proper names, geographical names or specific terms, that is, each word is “showed” by hand spelling. At the same time, sign signs represent whole words, and in total there are more than 2000 gestures in the dictionary of the deaf. Show some of them will not be difficult.

For example:

You can learn more about sign language from a well-known book. G. L. Zaitseva“Gesture speech. Dactylology".

It is easier to get acquainted with the basics of dactylology - there is a well-established alphabet, and by spelling a word with gestures, you can communicate with a deaf person. There are 33 dactyl signs in Russian dactylology, each of which corresponds to the outline of the corresponding letter.

Russian dactyl alphabet from the site deafnet.ru:

Note that a deaf or hard of hearing person is likely to understand exactly what you want to say to him without sign language, because for the most part they are very good at reading lips.

In our classes, we devoted more and more time to the history of the creation of writing. But this time I wanted something different, more unusual and modern. So the idea came up to tell children about other languages. Already in the plans are:

Sign language;
- the language of spies;
- programming languages;
- Braille cipher.

Gestuno is the language of people with hearing impairments.

Deaf people communicate using gestures - quick hand movements accompanied by a lively facial expression. These gestures, like any other language, need to be learned. They quickly convey information to the interlocutor. Where hearing people need many words, for example: Shall we go across the bridge?, one gesture is enough for deaf people.
This possibility is also used where it is impossible to hear: under water by divers or in space by astronauts working outside the spacecraft.
International alphabet of gestures. Each language has its own system of naming letters or sounds.

Sign languages ​​for the deaf and dumb vary from country to country. There are TV programs in which the text is "translated" for the deaf. Then, in the corner of the screen, you can see the announcer, who silently gesticulates, i.e. speaks in sign language.
There are more than 13 million deaf and hard of hearing people in Russia. The birth of a child with hearing impairment in the family is a difficult test both for parents and for the child himself, who needs special teaching aids and, most importantly, communication with peers and relatives. Fortunately, the Russian Society of the Deaf is actively working on this front. Thanks to the activities of its branches, people with hearing impairments unite and communicate with each other without feeling excluded from the social process.

There are also problems: the lack of educational institutions that accept people with hearing impairments, the lack of sign language interpreters and teaching aids that allow them to master sign language.
Russian Sign Language is an independent language unit used for communication by people with hearing impairments.

Sign language does not consist only of a static figure shown by hands - it also contains a dynamic component (the hands move in a certain way and are in a certain position relative to the face) and a mimic component (the speaker's facial expression illustrates the gesture). Also, during a conversation in gestuno, it is customary to "pronounce" words with your lips.

In addition to this, when communicating with people with hearing impairments, you should be extremely attentive to your posture and involuntary hand gestures - they can be misinterpreted.
The basis of sign language is the dactyl (finger) alphabet. Each letter of the Russian language corresponds to a certain gesture (see picture).

Knowing this alphabet will help at first to overcome the "language barrier" between you and a person with a hearing impairment. But Dactyling (spelling) is rarely used by the deaf in everyday speech. Its main purpose is to pronounce proper names, as well as terms for which their own gesture has not yet been formed.

For most words in Russian Sign Language, there is a gesture that denotes the whole word. At the same time, I want to note that almost all gestures are intuitive and very logical. For example:

"Writing" - we kind of take a pen and write on the palm of our hand. "Count" - we begin to bend our fingers. "Grandfather" - very reminiscent of a beard, right? Sometimes in gestures for complex concepts, you simply marvel at how accurately the essence of the subject is noticed.

The structure of sign language is not complicated at all. The word order corresponds to the usual sentences of the Russian language. For prepositions and conjunctions of one letter, their dactyl gesture (a letter from the alphabet) is used. Verbs are not conjugated or declined. To indicate time, it is enough to give a marker word (Yesterday, Tomorrow, 2 days ago) or put the gesture "was" before the verb.

Like any other language, Russian sign language is very lively, changes all the time and varies greatly from region to region. Manuals and training materials are updated at a snail's pace. Therefore, the recent publication of a primer for children with hearing impairments has become a real event.

The basic gestures with which you can communicate with deaf people are quite elementary:

The main difficulty is not even in mastering gestures, but in learning to "read" them from the hands. Gestures are complex - they consist of several positions of the brush, following one after another. And out of habit it is difficult to separate the end of one gesture and the beginning of another. Therefore, learning gestuno takes no less time than learning any foreign language, and maybe more.

We often see people with hearing impairments in the subway and on the street, in cafes. These are cheerful, shining people, completely ordinary, just having other ways of communicating. Deafness does not prevent them from being happy - having friends, a favorite job and a family. They can even sing in tin and dance - yes, yes, people with hearing impairments still hear music,

Few people have encountered the problem of communicating with deaf people. Even fewer people understand what such speech is based on. One of the misconceptions is that the sign language of the deaf and dumb was invented only by hearing people, and that it depends on ordinary speech. Actually it is not. The second misconception is that sign languages ​​include dactyling of letters, that is, the image of letters with hands.

Dactylology shows words one letter at a time, while sign signs show them in their entirety. There are more than 2000 such gesture words in dictionaries for the deaf. Some of them are quickly remembered and easily depicted.

The concept of "sign language"

The sign language of the deaf and dumb is an independent language that arose naturally or was created artificially. It consists of a combination of gestures that are made by hands and complemented by facial expressions, body position, and lip movement. It is used most often for the purpose of communication among deaf or hard of hearing people.

How did sign languages ​​originate?

Most of us tend to think that deaf sign language actually originated among people with hearing. They used gestures for silent communication. Be that as it may, people with a defect in speech and hearing use it.

An interesting fact is that only 1.5% of people in the world are completely deaf. The largest number of people with hearing impairments is found in Brazil, among the Urubu tribe. There is one deaf child for every 75 children born. This was the reason that all representatives of the Urubu are familiar with sign language.

At all times there was a question of how to learn the sign language of the deaf and dumb. Moreover, each region has its own. The problem of the emergence of a common language in large areas began to be considered from the middle of the 18th century. At this time, educational and educational centers for children with hearing problems began to appear in France and Germany.

The task of teachers was to teach children the written form of their native language. For explanations, the gestures used among the deaf and dumb were taken as a basis. On their basis, a gestural interpretation of French and German gradually arose. That is, gestural speech is largely artificially created. Everyone can understand and use such speech.

Teaching the language of the dumb in the past

The sign language of the deaf and dumb in each country is different. This is due to the fact that the gestures taken as a basis could be interpreted differently in different states. So, for example, teachers from France were invited to the USA to create their own school for the deaf. It was the teacher Laurent Clerc who developed this trend in America in the 18th century. But the UK did not take the ready-made language, adopting only the methods of deaf pedagogy. This is what caused the fact that American for the deaf is similar to French, and cannot have anything in common with English.

In Russia, things were even more complicated. The first school for the deaf appeared here at the very beginning of the 19th century. In Pavlovsk, the knowledge and practice of French teachers were used. And half a century later, an educational institution was opened in Moscow, which adopted the experience of German specialists. The struggle of these two schools can be traced in the country today.

Gesture speech is not verbal tracing paper. At the same time, its structure and history have not been studied by anyone for a long time. Only in the second half of the last century, scientists appeared who proved that the language for the deaf is a full-fledged linguistic system. And it has its own morphological and syntactic features.

Gesture communication

In order to understand the silent language, the gestures of which differ depending on the state, it is necessary to decide where it will be needed. In particular, Russian dactylology has 33 dactyl signs. The book by G. L. Zaitseva entitled “Sign speech. Dactylology” is suitable for studying the sign language of the deaf and dumb for Russia. Learning words will take time and will require a lot of practice.

For example, here are a few descriptions of gestures and their meanings:

• hands raised to the level of the chin and bent at the elbows, interconnected by the tips of the fingers, mean the word "house";
• circular rotations simultaneously with two hands in the thigh area mean "hello";
• the bend of the fingers of one hand, raised to the level of the chest and bent at the elbow, means "goodbye";
• the right hand folded into a fist, which touches the forehead, means "thank you";
• a handshake at chest level means "peace";
• smooth movements with two parallel palms, looking at each other from left to right, should be understood as an apology;
• touching the edge of the lips with three fingers and moving the hand to the side means "love."

To understand all the gestures, it is better to read the special literature or watch video tutorials. However, even here it is necessary to understand which language is better to learn.

Gestuno language

The problem of understanding among deaf people all over the world became very acute only in the last century. In 1951, after the emergence of the World Federation of the Deaf, it was decided to create a universal silent language, the gestures of which would be understood by the participants of all countries.

Work on this issue only came to fruition in 1973 in the form of the first dictionary of simplified sign language. Two years later, international sign speech was adopted. To create it, the languages ​​of England, America, Italy, and Russia were used. At the same time, the ways of communication among representatives of the African and Asian continents were not taken into account at all.

This has led to the fact that in addition to the official language, there is also an informal sign language in the world.

Alphabet dactyl

Gestures can show not only words, but also individual letters. It's not exactly deaf-mute sign language. Words are composed of individual gestures-letters, which makes communication difficult, making it longer. With the help of the dactyl alphabet, this is what a similar method is called, common nouns, scientific terms, prepositions and the like are indicated.

This alphabet has its differences in different sign languages. It is quite simple to study it, since it consists, as already mentioned, of 33 dactyl signs. Each of them corresponds to the image of the corresponding letter. To understand Russian speech, you should study the corresponding dactyl alphabet.

We are accustomed to consider oral speech as the only and main language of people. But besides it, there are other ways of expressing words and thoughts. People with hearing impairment use body language and facial expressions for interpersonal communication. It is intended for communication between deaf people and is called sign language. Gesture speech is carried out using a visual channel for transmitting information. This type of communication is not widespread and has not yet been fully studied. Only in our state, Russian sign language is used by 2 million people.

In sign language, information is conveyed from the speaker to the listener through the movement of the hands, eyes, or body. It is perceived through the visual channel and has the following properties:

• In sign language, the main place is occupied by the space around the speaking person. When communicating, it affects all levels of the language.
• Unlike spoken words reaching the ears sequentially, the language of the deaf is shown and perceived simultaneously. This helps convey more information using a single gesture.

There is no universal sign language for deaf and dumb people in the world. There are more than 100 sign languages ​​used for communication between people with speech and hearing impairments. People using different gestures will not understand each other. Deaf people can, like speakers, learn or forget the sign language of another country.

The use of sign language is expanding every year, making a primitive system of communication a suitable area for expressing a variety of thoughts and ideas. Sign language is used in the educational system, on television, video lessons. Russian sign language is used only for interpersonal communication of people.

In Europe, the language of the deaf appeared at the beginning of the 18th century. Before his advent, deaf people lived and studied in isolation from others. The first school for the deaf and dumb appeared in 1760 in France. The main task of teachers was teaching deaf children to read and write. To solve this problem, the old French sign language, which appeared among a group of deaf-mutes, was used. He was slightly modified. Specially designed learning gestures were added, which were used to indicate grammar. In training, the “mimic method” of transmitting information was used, when each letter was indicated by a separate hand gesture.

This system of education later began to be used in Russia. In 1806, the first school for the deaf was opened in Pavlovsk. And in 1951, the World Federation of the Deaf appeared. Members of the organization decided to create a standard sign language. It was to be used for deaf professionals and public figures participating in the congress.

To standardize sign language, experts from many countries, having analyzed similar gestures used by different nationalities, developed a single language for all. And in 1973, a dictionary of sign speech was published, which was prepared by the World Federation of the Deaf.

Shortly thereafter, at the VII Congress of Deafness in America, the International Language of the Deaf was created and approved, which was used for communication between deaf people from different countries who took part in world-class events.

Sign Language Linguistics

Despite the prevailing opinion about the language of the deaf as a primitive language, it has a rich vocabulary and is not at all easy to use. A linguistic study was conducted, which proved the presence in the language of elements that are present in full-fledged oral speech.

Gesture words consist of simple components - hirem, which do not carry a semantic load. There are 3 elements that describe the structure and difference between gestures:

• The location of the gesture to the body of the speaker;

A gesture can be used in a neutral space for it, on the same level with a part of the body without touching it.

• The shape of the hand that performs the gesture;
• The movement of the hand when performing a gesture.

The movement of the hand in space and the movement of the hand or fingers with the same position of the hand are taken into account.

• The movement of the hands in space relative to the body of the speaker's body or to each other.

Gestures are schematic in nature, invented in the course of communication and have a distinctive connection with the visual designation of the word. The language of the deaf has its own grammar to facilitate communication on diverse topics and is not a visual repetition of ordinary language.

Distinctive features of the structure of sign language

• specificity;

There is no generalization in the gesture, limited by the sign of the object and action. There is not a single gesture in which the words "big" and "go" are used. Such words are used in various gestures that accurately convey the signs or movement of a person.

A gesture is capable of depicting an object. Sounds or letters that make up words, independent of the characteristics of the object, can be conveyed by a special movement of the hand. For example, for a picture of a house, the hands show a roof, and for a picture of friendship, they show a handshake.

The origin of the names of things in speech is sometimes impossible to explain. The origin of gestures is easier to explain, since their history of creation and emergence is known. But even it is erased over time and becomes more schematic.

• Imagery;

Thanks to the imagery, gestures are easier to remember and learn. It makes gestures clearer for deaf people to communicate with each other.

• Syncretism;

Gestures have the property of unity in the transmission of words different in sound, but the same in meaning. For example, fire, bonfire or video, shooting. To designate synonyms in a gesture, additional features of the subject are used. For example, to designate a picture, the word “draw” and “frame” are shown.

• Amorphous;

Sign language consists of concepts, but it is not capable of expressing such forms of grammar as case, gender, tense, number, aspect. For this, gestural mimic speech is used, which from a small number of gestures receives the usual combinations of words. This happens by gluing (agglutinating) the word in a certain order:

1. A person or object is a designation of an action (I - sleep);
2. The ongoing action is denial (to be able to - no);
3. Designation of the subject - quality;
4. The state of an object or person (a cat is sick, slightly).

• Grammatical spatiality.

Gesture speech conveys several phrases and words at the same time. An expression transmitted in this way contains, in addition to gestures, non-manual components. This is the facial expression of a speaking person, the movement of body parts, a look. This type of information transfer is used, as well as intonation in oral speech.

The language of deaf people is non-linear. Grammar is transmitted along with vocabulary, the speaker's gesture can be modified during communication.

Teaching Russian Sign Language

Learning sign language will take the same amount of time as learning any other language, special video courses will come in handy. In addition to the theoretical part, practice is required. Without it, it is not possible to master the language. Understanding deaf and dumb people is much more difficult than showing something yourself. The test speech contains words or expressions that do not have a translation into Russian.

You can learn sign language on your own, with the help of video lessons or a dictionary. Using video training, you can learn how to use in practice when communicating with deaf people such simple but necessary words as “thank you”, “sorry”, “love”. The word "thank you" in the language of the deaf will come in handy in life when meeting deaf people.

Using video lessons, it is easier to learn and remember information, to understand how to correctly perform a gesture, to practice by repeating movements. Learning the language of the deaf, with the help of dictionaries, lectures or video lessons, solves the following tasks:

• Improving speech skills through the use of sign language;
• Expansion of knowledge about the linguistic component of the language;
• Formation of knowledge about the language of the deaf as a natural form of communication between people, the presence of similar and distinctive characteristics with other languages;
• Acquaintance with the history of the origin of the language and the stages of development;
• Formation of the importance of language learning and understanding of the role of Russian and sign speech in the life of society.

Learning a language with the help of a special program or a video lesson contributes to the development of communication in different living conditions, in informal communication with friends, parents, unfamiliar people or in a formal conversation.

Target audience: a course for a wide range of people who want to learn RSL from scratch.

Course length: 72 hours.

Purpose: for self-development and initial practice of communication with the deaf.

Course “Russian Sign Language. Started." 80 hours

Target audience: a course for teachers teaching the deaf in SVE and VPO organizations. Supplemented with lectures on the psychological characteristics of the deaf.

Course length: 80 hours.

Purpose: for the initial practice of communicating with the deaf as part of the educational process.

Therefore, this course will be useful not only for beginners to learn sign language, but also for the deaf, for whom RSL is their native language: they will be able to see the living connection of gestures with the language of those who hear.

The volume of the course is 72 academic hours.

In this course, the very beginnings of Russian Sign Language are given: the basic lexicon and the beginnings of RSL linguistics. For the first time, gestures, as lexical units, are given not as a mirror reflection of Russian words, but as independent concepts, which they are in essence, and a variant translation of these into Russian is offered for these concepts.
The course includes lectures on the basics of the psychology of deafness, which are read by a candidate of psychological sciences, a professional sign language interpreter, chairman of the Academic Council of the Institute Kuzmin Vyacheslav Vyacheslavovich.

Therefore, this course will be useful not only for beginners in learning sign language, but also for teachers of secondary and higher professional education working with the deaf in inclusive groups.

The volume of the course is 80 academic hours.

For the first time, a sign language course is equipped with full multimedia support - that is, all gestures included in the educational lexicon are filmed on video, which saves students from the need to take notes of lectures and record gestures shown by the teacher (in this case, each note turned into a Stirlitz cipher), which inevitably led to distortions and made it difficult to memorize the material being studied. Now this is not necessary: ​​each student is given a set of 3 books - a textbook, a workbook and a dictionary. Let's talk about this set of tutorials in more detail.