How to sign, hello.
Study #1
Dancing Hands, Mary Wigman 1928
Sign language is a complete, complex language of communication made by moving the hands and manipulating facial expressions and postures of the body.
Signing as a language was developed in France in the 1700s, this method was then brought to America in the 19th century and morphed into what we now know of as ASL. There has never been a universally agreed upon set of signs; in fact, regions within a country can employ their own variations in rhythm, form and ‘pronunciation.’
Combinations: A Pair of Left Hands, Auguste Rodin
Speak Italian: The Fine Art of Italian Hand Gestures, Bruno Munari
American Sign Language has more in common structurally with spoken Japanese than English, due to its topic-comment syntax. English employs a subject-object-verb syntax.
Braille as a method of blind reading originated in the early 1800s, when a soldier in Napoleon’s army developed a system of “night writing” so that nocturnal communication could take place without the giveaway of a lit lamp. Louis Braille then perfected the system by converting the alphabet into 6-dot cells, small enough for the fingertip to encompass an entire letter at once.
Close-up Movement of Hand Beating Time, Eadweard Muybridge 19th century
Researchers have found that hand gestures force people to pay better attention to the acoustics of speech, and thus retain the information better.
Gesturing comes to us naturally and innately; blind people use hand gestures when speaking, even when communicating with other blind people.
Speak Italian: The Fine Art of Italian Hand Gestures, Bruno Munari
