American Sign Language pt. 2

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to Why we Do what we Do. Welcome
to Why We Do what we Do. I am your
still signing host Abraham, and I'm.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Your grammatically different host Shane.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
We are a psychology podcast. We talk about the things
that humans and non human animals do, and sometimes we
talk about the specific ways they communicate. And this is
a part two because in the first part of this
discussion that we were having, we explored the history and
started getting into the grammar and structure and things to
know about ASL and a little bit with deaf culture

(00:46):
and deaf community and people who are hard of hearing
and hearing impaired. And this is a follow up to that.
We will continue discussing how ASL works and get into
some of the sort of functional analyzes of that to
a point. But if you're joining us so the first
time they welcome, We hope you enjoy what you hear
in this discussion, and I do recommend you go back
and listen to the last episode for some background. We'll

(01:08):
do a quick recap on that just to make sure
we're all caught up. Even if you heard it last week,
that was a week ago, so still good to get
that refresher.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
We'll do a quick recap.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
And then you'll be all caught up and ready to go.
If you're a returning person, welcome back. Thank you for
being with us neither way. If you'd like to support us,
you can join us on Patreon, leave us a rating
and a review like subscribe, tell a friend, hire a
plane to do skywriting that says listen to why we
do what we do. I'll talk more about the ways
you can support us at the end of this discussion.

(01:38):
It is July eighth, so Happy Be a Kid Again Day.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
I love that. It's also Coca Cola Day if you
like soda.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Sure. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
It is Math two point oh Day. I don't really
know what that means, but I'm on board.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
It's math more math plus, which makes sense a year.
They could call it math plus, but I guess two
point zero is number two anyway. It's National Freezer Pop Day,
which is much cooler than Math.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
So cool. It's frozen.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Related late as National ice Cream Sunday Day.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
It's also National Milk Chocolate with Almonds.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Day, Shane, did you know that is also National Blueberry Day?

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Oh? I didn't know that, but I love blueberries and
I will celebrate nice. It is SCUD Day, which means
savor the comic, unplug the drama.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
On board. I'm good with this, sure.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
It is air conditioning Appreciation Days in the Northern Hemisphere
and that makes a lot of sense to me.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yes, it also makes a lot of sense to me.
Right now. It is be nice in New Jersey Week.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Nah say, t'll ask.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, it's a big ask. The world's on fire right now,
and you want me to be nice too?

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Joysy, Just kidding Jersey ins if there's any of you
who listen to us. Its National Aborigine is an Islanders
Day Observance Committee weeks.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
There's a lot of words.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, yeah, that's what it is. Just rolls off the tongue.
It's nude Recreation weekend.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Oo hey, we kind of did an episode about this.
We did one on like on the the newdest Resorts
Clothing Optional.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
We did it was a good time.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
It is actually World Allergy Day. I found out.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Oh look at that. And it's also Shark Week.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Nice hopefully real sharks and not some of the nonsense
they've been doing on Discovery Channel the last few years.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah, where it's like just not it's just shark paranormal activities.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, basically they're like, oh, what about the megalodon. It
might still be out there. I'm like, I mean, the
movie was fun, and the second one was ridiculous but
also fun.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
But no, there's no no legalodons out there.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
There's no no, no, no, no. It's okay that there's not.
We can be okay that there's not.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, don't be silly, don't make more scared. Yeah, the
ocean is frightening enough as it is. Anyway, we are
here to talk about follow up episode because this is
about American sign language, or asl Or said, more reasonably
and not like a weirdo American sign language. And so
last time we did a huge discussion into the history

(04:18):
of this and started getting into the grammar mechanics, and
as a brief synopsis of that, many of you probably
know that throughout a lot of history, people who were
deaf or hard of hearing or hearing impaired faced a
lot of discrimination and challenges. They often were denying basic
rights like having an education, being able to get married,
being able to own property. They were thought of as

(04:39):
being incapable of thought or participating in communities. They were
incapable of like having any kind of intellect, was at
least a problem that some people in some parts of
the world imposed upon their understanding of deaf people.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yeah, all of that was demonstrabily false. And so over many,
many decades and even centuries, we saw lots of discrimination,
We saw lots of problems, but we did start to
see the emergence of using and understanding that speech and
hearing were different functions of different parts of the brain
and different processes, and we started to see kind of
the emergence of education books on deaf education. We started

(05:16):
seeing the emergence of language and communication. But we also
discovered that much of the problem or malignment that came
along with folks who were deaf and hearing impaired or
hard of hearing was a primarily Westerner European issue. What
we were finding is that many cultures around the world
actually had laws protecting people who were deaf and hearing impaired.
We saw that they were brought into important positions in communities.

(05:40):
And so what we kind of discovered, which is should
be no shock to anyone, is that white people are
a problem.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah, and it seems that probably the place where deaf
and hard of hearing and hearing impaired people were most
included was an indigenous cultures and tribes, particularly in the Americas,
but probably many other places around the world.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
Yeah, going to see that.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, the Europeans were kind of issue there, but eventually
they did start to develop some manual gestural signs in
the European and Western cultures as well. And we're able
to show that. Yes, in fact, if you just communicate
with deaf people using visual communication, they learn just as
readily and easily as anyone else. They are just as

(06:22):
smart and capable of participating in society and developing their
own culture as anyone else.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
And so that began to.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Emerge, and in eighteen seventeen they established a school for
the deaf in the United States and developed American Sign Language,
which was largely based on French Sign language, as well
as a lot of science from Martha's Vineyard Sign Language
and then some other sort of regional and household signs
that existed in the United States at the time.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yes, and so when we talk about ASL, it's important
remember that it has a different grammatical structure than English.
Than English specifically because it is its own language, its
own syntax, its own structure, its own words, it's got
its own format, all of those things, and that is
critically important to understand when you are learning and speaking
in ASL.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
Yes, we also talked a bit about the fact that
ASL and the deaf community and the heart of hearing
and hearing impaired community has a rich, vibrant culture. They
interact with each other, they have a great system for
supporting each other. There are many systems of education that
are designed specifically to support ASL education and people who
are hard of hearing and hearing impaired, and that it

(07:32):
is not incumbent upon them to learn to lip read
so that they can communicate. And even if they were
supposed to do that, only about thirty percent of English
can be read via lip reading, and that is not
enough to have an effective communication. So there's no need
for pity, no need for mistreatment or exclusion of these people.
Just I would recommend learn some ASL learn to communicate.

(07:54):
And also deaf people can read probably better than you,
so you can also write to them and then can
communicate that way.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yes, I think you nailed it all right.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
That gets us too, getting into some of the grammatical
structure here, as we started talking about the fact that
ASL uses its own grammatical structure, and so when people
try and sign and use ASL at the same time,
that's called SimCom. It usually breaks down one of those languages,
oftentimes the ASL part of the language, and makes it

(08:24):
really difficult to understand. Is generally not recommended to try
and do SimCom unless it is specifically requested by your audience,
because some people do depend on that. Some people also
use primarily spelling to sign. But that's sort of where
we left off, and so really getting into now an
understanding of the sort of grammar structure of ASL.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yes, so ASL is not a direct word to word
language to English, and this is something that people fail
to realize or recognize I think many times. I think
people who are primarily English speakers just kind of assume
that every language is a one to one and that's
the how it works.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
Yeah, for lots of reasons.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Right, there are some signs that effectively communicate a lot
of words with a simple gesture, and there are some
English words that require a lot of different signs to
make one word. So, for example, to say what line
of work are you in. In ASL, you would to
say the words. In English, you would say what line
of work are you in? In ASL, you simply point
to the person you were asking and then put your
hands out vertically on top of each other in front

(09:22):
of you, with your dominant hand on top, and slide
your dominant hand forward, and so you have like a
different sign. Just what's one sign really quick and saying
you what do you like? What's your work? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (09:32):
Yeah, just one, that's it, Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
So that's kind of cool to see. And in English,
the word babysitter, which is one word, babysitter, it's two
words put together in one word. You know, you know
what I'm saying, compound rd Yeah, yeah, compboun word. In ASL,
it's three different signs consecutively, baby, keeper, and person.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Yeah yeah, you signed all three of them together to
get the to get the one word. So it's just
not a one to one translation. Like some things, you
can communicate a lot with a single gesture an ASL,
and some single words you need a bunch of signs
to get to an ASL because they it's sort of
a combination of meanings.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah. So when I was a kid, I was part
of the Future Florida Educators of America and when I
was in fifth grade. So if that tells you anything
I did. Here's the thing. I know, I'm cool now. Okay,
I know I look cool and I'm cool now. But
I was part of the Future Florida Educators of America
and I was a safety patrol in fifth grade. And
one of the things we did for Earth Day was
we learned sign language to sign Heal the World by

(10:30):
Michael Jackson Nice, and so we stood in front of
our entire school and did sign language interpretation of Healed
the World. And I remember learning the sign for and,
which is it's almost like you're holding a sandwich like
you like you pull it apart, like you're pulling apart
of grilled cheese. That's how I learned what it was
at the time, and then I grew up and later
learned that nobody in the deaf community really uses the

(10:53):
word and yeah, because it's not really like it's not
necessary because ASL captures it without having to have a
sign for it.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Also, the sign that I learned for and is different
from that and yeah, you're right, you don't usually need it.
They will use it sometimes, but like there are strategic
specific times that you might need to use it or
want to use it, and most of the time you
don't actually need it. You can just keep signing and
like you don't need that conjunction.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Right well, and like and there's even one variation too,
like where if you don't do it right, it takes
the N out and it makes ad.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
Okay, we're back there.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
There's no way to sign the word and to make
it turn into add. But yeah, that was just for
that was just for the fun of the segue.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
So we're talking about the fact that, like in ASL,
you can have some signs that effectively communicate a lot
of words, and then some words need a lot of
signs and it's just not a one to a comparison. Also,
in ASL, you can use only the words you absolutely need,
even if there are a sign for the other words
you might use in a sentence, and so you can
just be very efficient with your communication. So, for example,

(12:04):
if you're asking how to sign a particular word, you could.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
Use we'll get in this in a moment.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
You can use lowered eyebrows and as if asking an
open ended question and then spell out the word you
want to sign for. So, like, if you wanted to
sign how do you sign car? You can just fingerspell
car with your eyebrows lowered and that what would be
like asking how do you sign car? I mean, you
can actually sign all of the words how do you
sign car and do it that way, but it could

(12:32):
be a lot more efficient by just saying car with
like the lowered eyebrows is like a question mark. Yeah,
it'll get to that a second. But so, signing is
often specifically organized to be as efficient as possible, only
in using the needed signs to communicate and dropping any
words that you don't technically need to get the point across.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
It's like in the office when Kevin tries to use
less words to be like, it's like, so, but I
want to be clear, Like it's it's like that in
that he's trying to be efficient, except asl it actually
works and in English spoke in English, it doesn't, like
that's the difference. Like, So, another another thing too, I
learned that if you have to ask a question, something
you might do is like you might put your hand

(13:13):
up like next to your head, and you might like
kind of like wiggle your finger like it's like question yeah,
like yeah, yeah, the question wiggle, So like you might
do that too, Yeah, And so I had a guy
that would do that, and he would like, you know,
he would like finger spell something and he would do
the question mark or like it would be kind of
like right or like when Rocky says, question, that's what
that's what.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
That's like exactly exactly.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yeah. So ASL does not use b verbs is, are, was, where,
and will be. That's that kind of an interesting thing.
And verbs don't have a tense or plural conjugation. To
express time, you almost always start with the time context
at the beginning of the sentence to say, like, for example,
to say I had soup for dinner last night, you
would say last night eat soup for dinner, right and

(13:56):
even and more specifically, last night eat soup dinner right
like And to specify that you are talking about yourself
or someone else, you might first point at the person
you are talking about. Me and I are the same,
So you could translate it to last night and me
eat soup dinner, right, And that's and that would be
the word for word translation into spoken English, but it's
grammatically correct in ASL.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yeah, exactly, and you could even probably drop dinner just
say because I said last night, if I if I
said it ate soup, I'm probably mean for dinner, right,
And so yeah, it could be fairly short in there,
exactly right. And yeah, with that tens or plural conjugation,
you think about the fact that if I say, like
we play games versus he plays games, there's a difference
between the S and o s because you have a

(14:37):
subject that is either plural or singular. Right in ASL,
there's nothing that's you don't have to do that conjugation.
And then there's also the tents like it happened in
the past or happening in the future, is happening now,
had happened in the past, and the perfect tense, Like
there's all these different conjugations, and they're like, there are
reasons to have those, particularly to affect a specific meaning,
but you can get all those same ideas across without

(14:59):
those conjugatesations, and ASL doesn't depend on those to exist.
Otherwise it would be like, you know, fifteen different signs
for a past tense verb as opposed to just saying
in the past verb. You know, right, then that's sufficient
to get that across, and then you don't have to
memorize you know, ten times more signs than you otherwise
need to use, or in this case, fifteen.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
Times more signs.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
Right for questions, when you're setting up the grammatical sentence,
the question should always come at the end of the sentence.
To ask someone what are you doing next, you would
sign next you do what, And you would set it
up that way, so you basically have the thing that
you start with and you end with the question at
the end. Or to sign how many pets do you have?

(15:42):
You would sign pets you have how many? And this
actually helps really clearly establish that the sentence is a
question instead of a statement. Because again, particularly if you
think that you're recognize the fact you might be dropping
some words. You don't necessarily have verbs. There are some
other like articles and things that are also dropped. It
can be really quick to just say, if I phrase

(16:02):
it with my question or the wh word at the beginning,
this is a statement versus if I put at the
end it's a question.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
That way, it's easier to understand as you see the
sign whether or not they're saying something or asking something.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, it's really interesting to see that kind of play
out too, which is because when you're watching somebody communicate
in ansl, like, it is really fascinating to kind of
watch the sentence structure show up and like those different
phrasings because you know, in vocal language, I think something
that people that we don't talk about enough. I mean,
we do talk about it, but we don't talk about
how important it is in vocal language is inflection and
how we might like you're like saying what are you doing?

(16:38):
Versus what are you doing? Like those tend to have
different meanings and contexts and stuff like that. But that inflection,
even though it's structurally the same, is going to have
a different feel because of how our tone goes.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, I'm going to expand that. I could say, what
are you doing? Is a different how you're going to
hear that?

Speaker 3 (16:54):
Then what are you doing? And like the exact same
order of words or.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
What are you doing?

Speaker 3 (17:01):
Thank you? What are you doing?

Speaker 1 (17:07):
Like those saying those in different ways like this all
have very very different meanings even though they are exact
same order of words and yes, so and you can
we'll actually get to that, Like there are ways to
do inflection type deliveries in asl but the order of
words kind of is one of them.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
Yeah yeah, yeah. Now, another really important feature of signing
is called non manual markers, and these are facial expressions
like like Abraham just mentioned that are used to alter
the meaning of words the way that we might use
our tone in our voice or to altery meaning words
when we use when we use a voice. Right, So,
so when you sign happy, if you mean to communicate
genuine joy, you should have a big smile on your

(17:44):
face or else you might look very sarcastic, like if
you just kind of yeah. So so Abraham signing it
right now, which is really funny. So like I might
like just sign if I have a stoic face, They're
going to be like, Okay, you're being sarcastic. Yeah, But
if I'm smiling big, then that's an exaggeration of the
word and kind of like gives you the varying degrees
to which somebody like those along that motional spectrum. Right, So,
like I learned and you actually talk about this here,

(18:06):
like the sign for tired, So like the sign for tired,
Like the way that I learned it was you take
your hand, your fingers are together, and you point to
like where your are like near your like chests, near
your armpits a little bit, or your shoulders like kind
of like in the area, and then you kind of
like they're pointing, and then you kind of drop your
hands down a little bit, like you say, like, okay,
so I'm tired, like and then you kind of drop
your shoulders a little bit. But if you're exhausted, you

(18:28):
might droop your head down a whole lot. You might
like close your eyes, you might kind of make a
more exaggerated movement. Yeah, and that's the difference between tired, exhausted,
or anything like that, you know, so you can kind
of see that exaggeration across those Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
And the non manual markers can also include some body
language because you can kind of shift and move your
torso around as you go. A lot of it's facial
expressions and head movements, but it can include things like actually,
the word or is just a body shift from one
side to the other. So if you signed one thing
and you're like or another thing, you just move your
side your body over to the other side, and then
you sign the second thing and that shift indicates or

(19:02):
yes with that what that word means.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
And a lot of it too is like, so, so
what I learned, and please tell me if I'm wrong,
but like I learned a lot of ASL. Language when
you are talking about people, places and stuff is like
placement in space.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
Yeah, so when you.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
Like are talking about this other place that's very far away,
you might like kind of like point in a direction
or you might face a different direction that is going
to indicate that this is this this direction or something
like that. So like you use a lot of that
to kind of like for like spatial like setups for conversations.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
Actually, there's a whole whole form of ASL that is
a part of storytelling where you'll actually kind of visually
construct the scene using your hands and you're like, Okay,
this is this thing over here, this thing over here
that you got some grass you got, like the sun
is out, that's kind of warm, this clouds, Like you
actually will visually try and paint the picture using your hands,
and then you will sort of walk through that scene

(19:54):
to tell the story that you want to tell. I mean,
there's this really cool like performative element to creating this
imaginative space using gestures and signals that they don't Actually,
there's a lot of times when you're doing that, you're
not using gestures that are specific signs. Instead, what you're
doing you're just sort of creating a texture to set
the scene. And there might be some signs you're using.

(20:14):
You're like okay, over here, you like having You're like, yeah,
there was a chair, and over here there was like
this window or something like that, and you can then
sort of set those things up where they were with
respect to each other in the story that you're telling,
rather than as you tell the story every time you
have to say, oh, that the window was over to
the left, over here, you can just reference the scene
that you've created. And it's actually true about a lot

(20:37):
of things in asl is. If you want to describe something, first,
you'll take the thing, and then anything you say about
it afterwards is still talking about that thing. So you like,
you want to talk about your new car, it's just like, okay,
new car, and then now we talk about the things
with respect to it. And again there's some level of efficiency,
but it also creates this kind of cool visual imagery

(20:58):
and sort of scenery that helps tell the story, which
I think is really neat. Yeah, it's so fascinating and yeah,
just as you said, the more intensely you execute the
expression of the body language, the more emphasis you're putting
on the word. And this is important too, because adjectives
barely exist inside of ASL, like there really isn't a

(21:18):
very extremely really those don't those don't exist in ASL
to say something is good. Just as an example here,
so let's talk through a sign, the sign for the
word good. You start with the flat hand, palm facing you,
and the sort of tip of your hands touching your chin,
and then you move it down and away from your
face into your other hand.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
That's good, Okay.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
If you do this gesture really intensely with a look
on your face that says hell, yeah, you're sort of
saying this is great. You're like yeah, good, yeah, really good,
Like that's that's how you would do that. That emphasis
is like it's just a quick good like hands just
down the way from your chin into the other hand,
simple gesture or like a really intense like so good.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
The more you sort of emphasize that with your face
and the motion that portrays the adjective, and does that
work for you? And honestly, like the tone of our
voice would do that a lot if we were just
in conversation, like we can say really good, extremely awesome,
like very very good, or you can just say like
you just good and like that tone of voice also

(22:22):
sort of does it, right, So that's the similar idea here.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yeah yeah, like or like I mean thankfully ASL doesn't
have a sign for brother, so you could say hell
yeah brother, like hell yeah brother, like you could do that,
and that's that also works too. Maybe that's a Florida thing.
I don't know, Maybe that's Florida sign language.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
There's a sign for brother.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
There's a sign for brother. Yes. Yes, So if you
want to say something is really good and you really agree,
hell yeah brother works, gotcha. This is a This is
all really really important for questions when we talk about
like these facial expressions in this exaggeration, because when you're
asking yes no questions, you need to raise your eyebrows
when you get the yes no clause of the set,
when you get to that part of the sentence, right,
so you make that part in the you kind of

(23:00):
raise your eyebrows as like an emphasis for that. But
when asking open ended questions, you must fur your brow
down during the question. Part of the clause, and that's
going to kind of prompt further explanation.

Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah, So if I say something like, what ads do
you want to listen to? When I get to listen to,
part of my eyebrows come down. I said, do you
want to listen to ads? And the eyebrows go up, and.

Speaker 4 (23:19):
I'm gonna say bad. Yeah, say no bad, no, no bad. Okay,
we're back. Been talking about some of the ASL signs
and the fact that the non manual markers a way
that you can adjust sort of the meaning, inflection, tone

(23:41):
and everything of those signs. And that's the body language
you use here.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yeah, Now, the speed and the intensity the sign can
communicate the inflection and meaning. Like we kind of mentioned earlier.
To sign no, you hold up your dominant hand in
a horizontal fist. You extend your index and middle finger
together and your thumb like almost like you're kind of
making like a little alligator face. Yeah, or a duck face,
I guess, because most people know what ducks are, not alligators?
What am I talking about? And you tap your fingers

(24:06):
against your thumb in a pinching motion, and you can
simply do this as a quick like nonchalot no, or
you can do this really fast and aggressively and like
and mean absolutely not, and you can include some facial
expressions to even put further emphasis to this, or you
can do a couple taps that mean a sort of
an elongated NA something like that. So you can see
how those little differences actually change everything.

Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah, yeah, that affects the meaning quite a bit. Also,
simply shaking your head can function as a negation to
added to other signs. So, for example, to sign understand,
you hold your dominant hand in a fist by your head,
with the back of your hand facing forward towards your audience,
and then you'll sort of slowly move your index finger
up and down in sort of a flicking motion. But
again it's kind of slow, and usually you're in a

(24:49):
company that is the head non that means I do understand.
Versus if you do that same motion but you shake
your head back and forth in a no, you're saying
I don't understand. So it's the exact same hand signal,
but you use your head to affirm or negate that.
And there are several where the sign itself is just
the sign. But if you shake your head while doing it,
it means a negation of that sign. So like, there's

(25:10):
the have sign, which looks very similar to tired. It's
your sort of two open hands touching sort of on
your chest near your armpits.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
Then that just means have. But if you just shake
your head while doing that, you're saying don't have.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
Sure, right, Many signs are actually fairly intuitive to recognize,
even if you haven't learned any signs. So signing yes
is making your dominant hand into a fist and motioning
up and down in a nodding motion, like nodding your head,
except you're doing with your fist. The sign for eat
looks like like kind of like you're putting food in
your mouth. The sign for elephant is moving your hand
away from your nose in sort of a wave motion downward,

(25:44):
like an elephant trunk. So yeah, you're kind of like,
I mean, you don't make that noise if you don't
have to. But like, but that is like some of
them are very intuitive, and.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
I think there are actually many more that are like this.
I mean to talk about a part of your body,
A lot of times you just point to that part
of your body you want to talk about your eyes. Yeah,
you point to your eyes, and so, like, there are
a lot of signs that I think are very intuitive.
There are many that you wouldn't necessarily recognize. You see
it and you're like, what's that supposed to mean? Which, again,
there's like so many different ways to communicate these things,
but there are many that are quite intuitive. Yeah, most definitely,

(26:14):
the deaf community has also found ways to sort of
use wordplay with they're signs.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
They tell their own versions of jokes that really wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
Translate directly to English, because the whole point is that
the sign is kind of a pun, you know. Yeah,
and so the deaf community has a lot of their
own humor and jokes that are unique to them than
anyone who understands the language, of course. But that's kind
of just a fun thing to know as well, is
that because signs have their own meanings, their own context,
they can kind of have fun with how they deliver

(26:41):
those signs in a way that if you were to
say in English wouldn't sound like a joke, but an
ASL would be hilarious.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah. Two of my favorite ones that I learned is
when somebody says they can say their alphabet backwards and
they just turn their back to you and then spell
over their shoulder, that's really good. That that one was
really good. And then the other one is the sign
for understand. So like the sign for stand is you

(27:06):
put your hand flat out like it's a horizontal plane,
and you put like two fingers up like it's a
person's legs standing, and you just flip it upside down,
and then that's understand.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
It's the version of understand.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's great, it's it's
it was really like And again I think that that's
I think that speaks to the unique context in culture
and the richest of a culture that has its own
jokes that can only be understood by the audience and
the members of that community. Like I think that's really
lovely and beautiful, and I think that's a sign of
like a really like growing community, you know.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
So absolutely.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
So finally, we should point out that signs are evolving,
just like other languages. There are many signs for other
countries and cultures that are somewhat insensitive, stereotypical and racist
that have or i've gradually been changed to less offensive signs.
So you might have a sign that was historically used
that made sense, and then that has changed over time
because it is not an accurate representation of that group

(27:59):
or that place, and it's kind of evolved with the
times to be more sensitive or more inclusive.

Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yeah, I mean the people of eighteen sixteen when the
school have founded, despite the fact that they were doing
some support for minority groups, this was still a point
in time where a lot of people were still not
being treated very well in the United States. And the idea,
I mean, look at the name of the school, like
the deaf and Dumb was like the name that was
originally there because that's what that meant at the time.

(28:25):
And obviously those things have changed and evolved over time,
but they also just had some very insensitive thoughts and
ideas about women and people of other countries and other races,
and so those are are things that have changed over
time because they were just sort of an artifact of
the fact that those were terms that were used, and
they're sort of like, let's just evolve here, let's develop

(28:47):
this a little bit better, yeah, and try some other things.
So that's just you know, some emerging and evolution of
those signs is happening, just like any other language as well.
Right right also, and one of the other ways that
they're changing is some are getting more efficient, some are
actually getting using more movements. But that's also true of
English as well, where it's like we use an initialism
or an acronym to say something that's faster to say

(29:08):
by using the actual words like BTW, I'm like, be
right back actually has fewer syllables than btwwa or BRB
is b right back, by the way, is what I
was thinking of has Yeah, BTW, Like people like speaking
acronim like that's actually more effortful. Anyway, same thing is
going on that some are getting more efficient, but some

(29:28):
are also adopting some slang, and they're like turning slang
that was once was slaying into formal signs, or they're
getting more specific. Some are actually going from a generic
sign to more specific individual signs for things. Some signs
have regional variations that sometimes what was the regional variation
actually becomes the dominant sign in most places. Later, even

(29:49):
in the last fifteen years, some signs are no longer
really used and new ones have taken their place. Actually
the sign for people I saw some content creators on
YouTube indicating that there's a new sign emerging that might
replace that. It's like becoming more common, Okay, And not
that I don't know if there's anything necessarily wrong with
the way that they were doing it, but maybe they
just thought the new way was a little bit easier, yeah,
or something. But yeah, it's just an evolving language with

(30:11):
things that change and develop over time, like all languages.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah, absolutely, Behaviorally speaking, which is one of our favorite
things to talk about, sign language functions the same way
as any language. Words have functions moderated by a trained
audience and utilizes transformation of stimulus function to participate in
relational frames. That's a really complicated way of saying. Sign
language is verbal behavior, just not vocal behavior. It's subject
to reinforcement, it's subject to punishment. It requires some prerequisites

(30:39):
to be able to start. So, like one thing that
we have been talking about is like the shape of
some signs, but like some folks require maybe like some
fine motor movement to be able to make some signs,
and when they don't have the fine motor movement, they
might do modified signs. So it's like a little bit
of a different way to go about it. So like
there's different ways to kind of which for the same
reason that we modify our vocal language if we need
to write, like if somebody who has a severe stutter

(31:01):
is having a difficult time with certain words, they might
use different words in place of that, and they're modifying
their vocal language so that they can actually communicate effectively
with their conditions. So like it's it's we see some
of those things kind of shift and change and grow,
like just from basic behavioral functions.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
It's actually true of elderly signers as well. Sometimes with
arthritis and like just lack of motility or like mobility
over time and dexterity, they will use they'll have to
use modified signs because their fingers just can't make the
same movements that they used to make. And then you're
exactly right that like thinking of younger kids, and we
think of like for those people who are behavior analyst

(31:38):
listeners of ours, there's something called nikok, which is basically
just repeat sound that you hear that you hear, which
can include words. You can imagine, like that's an important
early foundational step for language acquisition, is that they just
start repeating back the sounds that they're hearing. The same
is true for signs. You get to imagine, like they're
starting to practice scene if they can make the shapes
with their fingers in their hands that you are making,

(32:00):
and try and mirror that and do their the same
version of it. So again it follows the same behavioral
trajectory as any other language, and it does start to
like the grammar starts to evolve in shape, and it
becomes clearer and faster and more articulate, and the vocabulary grows,
and so any behaviors that facilitate social communication in this

(32:20):
way engage cognition and behavior in the exact same way
that language would. They're shaped and reinforced by that social audience,
and they've developed a behavioral cusp. Which is this idea
probably worth unpacking in a many at some point, But
the idea is that many new behaviors, repertoires and reinforcers
occur because you've now established a new patterning of behaviors
that unlocks a huge new amount of behaviors that could

(32:43):
potentially exist, And that signing is a language in the
exact same way. So it works the same way. As
you develop those signs, you can do more and more
and more with those signs and kind of an exponential growth.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah, and for those of you who struggle between behavioral
custs and pivotal behaviors, I always learned that behavioral cusps
open you up to oh noud so and that has
stuck with me. So like now you get to hear
me sing Aladdin, and uh, there's that also too. We
were talking about a koax. I'm so glad you brought
up a cox because for those of you are my

(33:15):
behavior as friends and those of you want to just
learn some interesting snapple cap facts about behaviorism. And a
koic is just a duplic right underneath the verbal behavior period, right,
so duplicate, A duplicate is a duplication of the it's
an exact duplication. And a kok is the vocal one.
A mimetic is the sign. So we have a word
for the verbal behavior of copying sign language, and that

(33:38):
is our mimetics, so like which is just you know,
miming instead of echoing, which is really cool. So just
so you have more words on that, Yeah, and I think.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
I think with the definition, it just means that there's
one to one correspondence, right, Like I don't that's literally
all it is. Yeah, I don't think that the even
necessarily the form was directly included that it like had
to be auditory. But I mean I think it was
specified that way to show but.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
I think you got specified later.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yeah, yeah, but I mean, if you really just take
the definition of like, this is a verbal response that
has one to one correspondence with another. One language is
verbal behavior. Signed language is verbal behavior one to one correspondence.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
Ekoic yep, boom, got it, nail. Philosophy got nerds.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah, Now, the relative articulation pattern in specific behavioral forms
are unique to specific communities. It will become fluent and
quote unquote ingrained. These are gradually reinforced or not by
their use in the community. And this is how meanings change.
This is why slang works the way it does. It
shows up in certain communities, it stays in certain communities.
It shows up. I mean, we just talked about this
in AAVB right or AAV I'm sorry AAV. We talked

(34:42):
about how like certain slang will show up in certain
communities and it'll stay there, and it's like so much,
it's so important for that particular dialect or group or
section or language itself.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
You know, would AA BV is be like African American
by volume.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
Yeah, that would be it, And that's probably not a
measure that's used by real scientists.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yeah yeah, yeah, Okay, So anyway, all of this is
just to say that, like like like any other language,
this is verbal behavior that's shaped, it's developed, those regional
sort of things. The way that people form their own
articulations and gestures will be probably somewhat idiosyncratic to the
community in which they spend their most time, because what
fluent looks like to them is what functions effectively inside

(35:31):
their community. Now with the intervention of the Internet and
our ability to communicate with a large swath of people
and like teleconferencing type things where we can see each
other now, because I think one of the ways that
a lot of deaf and hard of hearing people use
their phone is they'll do FaceTime because they're obviously not
like particularly if they're profound deaf, like they have no
hearing or it's the loss is so great they can't

(35:51):
use assisted hearing devices. They're going to look at the
person and sign to each other through their phone. And
actually because of that they have sorted developed being a
bunch of one hand modifications too, many of the signs
because they got to hold the phone with one hand
and sign with the other. So there's like even more
development around those, which is kind of cool. That's own thing.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
So listen, I worked with an adult client who would
have phone sex via FaceTime and would have to FaceTime
with with this partner and they would sign and they
would sign and do that. That's how they that's how
they would have like meaningful sexual relations.

Speaker 3 (36:23):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
Wow, Yeah, it's technology solving problems.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
I will also say too, really fascinating thing. They would
have to sometimes do that, Like when he had a
hearing partner that didn't speak language, they would have to
have an interpreter, so they would use an interpreter for
phone sex sometimes two. That's amazing, It's pretty incredible. What
my point is, like, those services exist, folks. They are
out there, so just to know for for pleasure seeking behaviors,
it's accessible.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
But you didn't know we were gonna end up with it.
With all that, I didn't I did not see it coming.
I didn't see these ads coming either.

Speaker 3 (37:01):
All right, we're back.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
We've been discussing some of the sort of ways to
unpack functionally what's going on with sign language, and really, unfortunately,
I think there's not a lot to say in addition
to what we might say about verbal behavior more broadly,
not that that is a topic that we've actually comprehensively tackled,
and I think we probably will in the near future,
but just thinking about and understanding how language works, sign
language works the same way. M M. There's actually even

(37:23):
a recent study looking neurologically at what's going on in
the brains of people who are speaking different languages and
showing that there seems to be a semantic map of
different languages that they looked at in the brain. So
certain words in one language had the same basic location
as words that semantically meant the same thing in a
different language, which is exactly what I would have predicted
if they'd asked me my opinion, But they didn't, And

(37:44):
I don't think that they did it with people who
were speaking sign language, but I'd be really I would
be willing to bet my hat on the idea that
they the semantic locations are exactly the same in sign
language as they are in vocal language. Oh yeah, with
respect to those meanings. So I think probably those studies
are forthcoming. I'm not sure, but I'd be willing to
bet again that that is the case.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
Oh yeah, most definitely.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
And all this leaves us with the fact that signing
is very cool. It's really fun. It allows you to
potentially communicate with more people. You can have more friends,
you can have more communication skills. There are also other
cool advantages that I like about signing that I think
are like, for one thing, if you're in a really
loud place and it's really hard to hear each other,
you could be signing to each other as the thing
that you could potentially do. And I think that it

(38:28):
is also helpful. This wouldn't work if everybody learns to sign,
but if you're in a place where not very many
people sign, you could potentially be talking to each other
in a way that is a little bit more covert
than trying to whisper under your breath or something.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
Yeah, So I'm as a bonus recommend because I'm going
to get to our regular recommendations in a little bit.
But as a bonus recommend I say start learning asl
practice a little bit every day and it will add
up even a few minutes every day, It will add up,
I promise you, like I practice a lot and more
than most people need to commit to this. But if
you just even did alphabet and counting every day, like
that'll take you a long ways. And if you learned

(39:00):
like a few new signs every week, you'd be surprised
at how quickly you start having a lot of things
that you can say and sign, Yeah, that you can
actually use on a regular basis and potentially help someone
or you know, make new friends or just you know,
be a cooler person because you know how to.

Speaker 3 (39:16):
Do sign language.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
Yeah, most definitely.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
But we do have some interesting tid points, yes, we
do to talk about, which is take home points that
are also tidbits, uh huh.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
And so let's talk about this.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
So we mentioned there are some regional variations of signs,
specifically with ASL, but different countries also use different systems
of signing altogether. So there is British Sign Language which
is BSL, there is French Sign Language FSL, Chinese Sign
Language CSL, Japanese Sign Language JSL, and over three hundred
different variations of sign language. I was thinking about this too,

(39:50):
because I find that Chinese and Japanese like sign language,
or like any any language that has like characters that
are like symbols versus like specific letters. I think you're
really fascinating because like the symbols themselves already carry so much,
like so much of the word, like so much of
the phrase, so like one symbol could be like multiple words.
So like I think that's really fascinating to think about

(40:12):
that being translated into like sign language type of feature.
Like there's something really cool about that.

Speaker 3 (40:17):
Yeah, yeah, that is really cool.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
Yeah interesting, and yeah, I mean superimpose any number of
other countries that have these that are in there, but yeah,
you get the sense language of origin sign language. There's
those over three hundred of them. There is a version
of sign language that is designed to map directly onto
English as a one to one translation that does exist.

(40:39):
It's called Signed Exact English or SEE. Is not technically
a language in itself. It's essentially a way to mutually
code gestures to represent English, so it's sort of supposed
to be a supplement. It is described as being used
to help deaf and hard of hearing and hearing impaired
people gain mastery over English at as it is spoken,

(40:59):
but it is not super common and it is not
really what is used by like the deaferent heart of
hearing and hearing impaired community very much. But it is
a thing that exists, and there's like a functional reason
to have it. But yeah, signed exact English is a
thing where you do have whatever you say in English,
you say the exact same version of that in a
version of sign.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
Yeah. So there is an international sign language called guests
douno or just you know.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
I'm not sure. I forgot to look up the pronunciation.
I'm guessing just dono.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Maybe I would guess that too, because it's probably gesture related,
like a manual Esperanto that is very visual and simple
and supposed to be able to be used by anyone
from any country to streamline communication. However, it is not
a language as much as it is a bridge to
help facilitate international communication.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
Yeah, and I don't think we've ever talked about Esperanto
on here. Some people will know and some people won't.
But there was an attempt, I want to say, in
the seventies to create a universal language, and it was
a combination of a variety of languages. It was called Esperanto,
and it was supposed to be like, let's just get
everyone on Earth speaking the same language that would have
all these benefits. They're not wrong, but obviously it didn't

(42:06):
super take off, but there are people like it is technically,
as far as I know, it is still a living language,
like there are people who know how to speak it,
and this is a version of that where it's like
it's sort of a simplified, streamlined version of sign language
that uses a bunch of different signs that's supposed to
be very very visual, and right now it seems to
be that it's not necessarily a language, but the idea

(42:27):
is to just help bridge international speakers sure using those signs.
So people who I think primarily communicate using ASL like
picking up this is not really a big ass because
it's sort of like, here are ways you could do
these signs that will if you meet someone who's from
another country who speaks a different version of sign language,
they might understand fairly easily, right.

Speaker 3 (42:47):
So yeah, it's kind of cool.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
There's also a version of ASL for people who are deafblind,
called pro tactile. So obviously if you have someone who
is also visually impaired, then signings not to be super
effective because that is a visual communication. So instead this
uses the feeling of touch on the hands and wrist
and the elbow and to help communicate by feeling the

(43:10):
signs someone else makes and vice versa, so you kind
of your hands are on their hands and vice versa
when you're gonna be touching your hands and arms and
doing gestures into those And this is essentially what was
done with Helen Color, like that was a version of that.
That protactile is teaching a version of being able to
sign so that you can communicate because she can't hear,
and she also can't see what you're doing, so it's

(43:32):
like we need some kind of tactile stimulation and use
the sense of touch to communicate.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Yeah, that makes sense, all.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Right, Well, I think that's what you have to say
about sign language. I've talked about this before. I just
I love this language. I think it's so cool. Learning
it has been so much fun. It's one of these
things too, where it's like being able to see the
progress in myself is very very clear, Like it's abundantly
clear to me. As I get better and better at this,
I can sign faster, I can understand seeing people sign faster,

(43:59):
I can spell faster, I can think of things inside
and I love that feeling. I love the feeling of
like seeing, of being able to see myself improve. I
love the feeling of learning tremendously. It's like my favorite
thing in the world, and so I strongly encourage people
to check it out. And I really was happy to
be able to actually do an episode on this.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
Yeah, it's so cool.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
Yeah, and I do hope that I really get a
chance to actually start getting immersed more in the deaf
community and deaf culture and being able to really communicate.
Right now, it's kind of it's like an academic thing.
I'm doing it because I want to do it, and
I don't have a lot of people I can actually
use it with, But I'm looking forward to an opportunity
to start really getting more immersed in the deaf community.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
Yeah, it's so cool. It's such a funding to learn,
and like my experience learning it many years ago was
just wonderful. It was so much fun to learn so
and it was so useful. It was so useful to
learn in that space. So I a second the recommendation
of learning how to do it, because I think it's
I think it's beautiful. I would recommend learning from like
a reputable resource. Yes, don't just pick up sign language
from like random YouTube videos. Like make sure it's a

(45:01):
reputable source, because sometimes you're gonna learn a sign and
like just a small positioning of your hand could change
the entire meaning of the word. So like make sure
that you're learning from somewhere that's like it makes you know,
there's a difference between lunch and some other words that
might not be what you're trying to say.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
Yeah, I actually I saw a really funny video to
people we're talking and mentioned how so the sign for
precious is in one part of the country. In a
different part of the country, the sign for the word underwear. Yeah,
this person. So one thing we didn't talk about in
this episode is that a lot of people in the
deaf community, they rather than spell each other's names every time,

(45:40):
they'll come up with name signs. And it's actually kind
of as an honor if you're not in the deaf
community already to be given a name sign. But yeah,
the people who speak to each other in asl they'll
come up with signs for their name rather than spell
their name every time. So in this one story, a
man who had a deaf son use the sign for
precious as his name sign, and when they moved to

(46:00):
a different part of the country where that meant underwear,
they were laughing because they were like, my son underwear
and he showed them the sign and they're.

Speaker 3 (46:10):
Like, thought, that was very funny. So anyway, just a
fun thing there.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
Yeah, name signs are cool. That would be cool, Mini,
that would be yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
I agree.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
I think that's what we have to say about ASL
and ASL really things. You should tell us your thoughts
reach out to us. You can write to us directly
at info at WWDWWD podcast dot com, or on the
social media platforms, and we very much look forward to
hearing from you about this topic. We do have some
recommendations to get into which if you're joining us for
the first time, we just recommend some stuff unrelated to
our topic at hand. But it is a thing that

(46:40):
we do that was just really fun and we save
that for the very end, so stick around for that part.
But before we get into that, I would like to
acknowledge all the people who helped make this podcast happen
because I need a team, a team of a smart people,
so writing and fact checking from Shane and myself. Thank
you for recording with me today.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
Shane, Hey anytime.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
Our social media coordinator as Emma Wilson, and our God
Emperor producer extraordinaiy.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
Is Justin, who is so good at what he does.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
That's him.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
He makes this sounds good because otherwise he does they're
not good, they're bad.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
So you're welcome.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
You're welcome. Yeah, thank you to Justin, and you're welcome
to everyone else.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
Luh huh. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Also, if you would like to support us, you can
do that several ways. Leaving us a rating and a
review is very helpful. It helps push us out into
algorithms and more people find us. You can make sure
you like then and hit those five stars and then
subscribe to make sure you don't miss any episodes. And
if you would like to support us financially, that helps
tremendously because, believe it or not, making a podcast is
not free, and even though we don't pay ourselves to

(47:39):
do this, we are volunteers. We want to bring it
to you for free and some people who appreciate that
process have joined us on Patreon and so as a
special thank you, we get them early episodes bonus content
ad free episodes, and at the end of our full
length discussions, we say a giant thank you to each
and every one of them individually. So thank you so
much to Mike, m to Megan, to Mike t, Justin,

(48:00):
Kim Brad, Stephanie, Brian, Ashley, Kiara, and to Charlie. Thank
you all so much for supporting us, for all the
time you've been supporting us, and for being so wonderful.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
Forever and always, ever and always.

Speaker 1 (48:13):
Is there anything that I'm missing before we transition to
our recommendations, No, let's do it.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
Yeah, recommendations.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
Okay, I'm recommending a TV show that wrapped up. This
is kind of a scary TV show. It's called Widow's Bay.
This is in sort of the supernatural horror genre. It
takes place on an island and a bunch of weird, strange,
creepy things are happening on this island. It's also actually
pretty funny. I wouldn't put it in the horror comedy. Actually,

(48:50):
the writing really reminds me of something you might see
from Stephen King Sure in the way that the horror
of the horror is developed.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
It's not super gory.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
There's a little bit of like macabre's sort of imagery
here and there, but it's a lot of like suspense
building and then creepy, sort of monstrous people. More than anything,
it's like there's an evil presence on the island and
people aren't really sure what's happening or why accept some
people who sort of have an understanding and they're trying
to figure out what to do to combat this, and

(49:19):
in the meantime they run into like ghosts and monsters
and things. Anyway, this is an Apple TV original show.
I had a lot of fun with that. I'm looking
forward to the next season. The first season just wrapped,
and so I do recommend checking it out if you're
into that kind of thing, that sort of horrory type thing.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
Yeah, I love that. I love when it's done well
and it's like kind of a unique take on the genre.
That's always fun.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (49:43):
All Right, So I'm gonna recommend something that even I
think maybe by the time you hear this episode, it's
not out yet, but it will be out in August.
But I'm really excited about it. I'm really proud about it.
I have recorded a new album ooh my band that
I am doing. My solo projects called god Man. I
recorded a new EP. It's called loves You. It's six songs,
and I think it's really interesting and cool and fun.

(50:05):
So if you like stuff that is really loud, like
Coalesce Converge, It's got some softer parts, some quieter parts,
and you know, I think the theme of this EP,
which I haven't really talked about a lot, is kind
of exploring grief. I've had a lot of stuff happen
in my life in the last couple of months, so
it's kind of like almost like a dissertation on thief
are on grief, I should say, not thief, thief, the thief,

(50:27):
which is, you know what grief does to your joy Sometimes.
I'm really proud of it. I'm really excited about it.
It's six songs, really cool artwork from an artist in
Orlando who goes by fatal Entries on Instagram. Her name
is Liz and she is rad So yeah, I'm super
excited to get it out and then stoke for folks here.
And I'm really proud that I got it done. I
blew up my vocals yesterday trying to record everything.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
Man, Well, congratulations, yeah, thanks making art is the best.
I'm happy that you keep finding time to do that thing.
And I've been really bad about making space for actually
checking out all stuff you make, because you make and
I need to do that.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
But yeah, I'll send it. I'll send you some stuff.
He'll be good times.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Yeah, yeah, cool. All right, Well that's what we have
to say about all of that. Thank you all for listening.
I think we're ready to wrap this one up. So
this is.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
Abraham and this is Shane. Why we Do what we
Do is out see ya. You've been listening to Why
We Do what We Do.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
You can learn more about this and other episodes by
going to WWDWWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and
we hope you have an awesome day

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}American Sign Language pt. 2

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Joe Rogan Experience

All Episodes

American Sign Language pt. 2

Stuff You Should Know