Category talk:User sgn

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Note: this discussion began on the Wikipedia_talk:Babel under the Other languages heading. The content immediately below is pasted from there.

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Hello - I created a new template for "other languages" - ie, languages with very few speakers or with no widely used written form (such as deaf sign languages). Contributors writing about such languages may wish to identify themselves as users of the language, even though they are only writing about it in English. It's not perfect and doesn't work in the Babel template (as it has a nested variable which allows you to specify the 'other language' in question). Here are two examples of how it might look:

Template:User ol-3

Another example of it in use is on my user page (I can't get the table to format properly - I don't know much about wiki syntax/HTML, so suggestions are of course welcome!). Cheers  :) ntennis 07:06, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Although there isn't any ISO639 language code for "ol" yet, I do find it unfortunate to use it anyway - it may become used in the future. A good solution would be to use "other" but that would totally wreck the template as it's obviously too long... TERdON 10:46, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

How about xx? They usually leave codes like that free... Haven't checked it, though. ナイトスタリオン…ㇳ–ㇰ 11:03, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

xx is the better option. Usually xx or x prefixes and codes are reserved for non-standard or experimental (hence the x) variations, so that'd work. ol could likely be used in the future. Ashmodai 11:59, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

In ISO 639-2, sgn is for sign language, and mis is for " Miscellaneous languages" --Hello World! 13:22, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

If at all it is for sign languages or the American sign language. There is no "sign language". I'd assume making sgn and mis templates with a variable for the particular language's name would work. We already have alpha-3 languages listed anyway. Ashmodai 15:37, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Sorry I missed the s. sgn should be "sign languages". See ISO 639--Hello World! 04:34, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks all for your input! I agree we should ditch the "ol" code. I like the suggestion of a seperate template for sign languages coded as "sgn" — partly because the template can use a phrase like "native signer" rather than "speaker", and partly because it fits best with this project's convention of using codes from ISO 639. I will go ahead and make it now.

There is still a problem though: if I leave the "language" variable in the template (so the user can specify which particular language they sign), it breaks the Babel template. Anyone more code-savvy than me got any ideas for fixing this?

By the way, according to clause 4.4 of ISO 639-2, other codes can be appended to the "sgn" code to specify different Sign Languages, but there is as yet no widely agreed-upon system in place. I'd prefer to have one template for all sign languages (with a "language" variable in the template). ntennis 06:39, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Now done. Here's a sample:

ntennis 08:10, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Looks better. Same thing for mis and we're done, I say. Ashmodai 10:59, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

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End pasted comments

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Hi ntennis,

A coupla comments. First, what, we don't already have this?! Second, I have some reservations about using a general template for all sign languages. For example, I once learned a smidgeon (sp?) of Japanese SL - not enough to add a box for, but this makes a good test language. If I call it "JSL", the template looks like

sgn-1

This user has a basic knowledge of JSL, a sign language.

but the JSL link links to a romanization system, not the SL.

If I write it out in full, I get

sgn-1

This user has a basic knowledge of Japanese Sign Language, a sign language.

which links right but sounds rather stupid.

How do we ensure that everyone uses the same name? The point of the boxes is so that you can find someone who speaks a language in question, but that won't work if people use various names for the same language. For example, besides acronym vs. full name, JSL is called Shuwa:

sgn-1

This user has a basic knowledge of Shuwa, a sign language.

People might do this (and probably will) just to avoid the repetition of the words "sign language". In the case of Shuwa there is no redirect page, but there will be for other SLs: Ameslan, for instance. (Okay, "Ameslan" is obsolete, but many other SLs have multiple names: Indo-Pakistani SL would be a real mess, as would Plains Standard.)

Two solutions I can think of: A. go through Ethnologue or Gallaudet and make a list of approved SL names on the template page, then change the syntax of the template so they all sound good, or B. make a separate template for each SL that someone is using.

Hope this helps, kwami 18:54, 2005 July 29 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, you are right. A few people have started using the template already and I've noticed both "ASL" and "American Sign Language" in the language variable, both of which are unsatisfactory for the reasons you stated above. Having seperate templates for each sign language would work, with a few modifications. It may be ultimately the best solution, because it also solves the problem of breaking the babel template. However, before I give up the idea of a single template, I'll put forward some of my thinking behind the original decision.

• I doubt templates would ever be made for more than 3 or 4 sign languages, and even those would be thinly populated. So it was largely a question of having a critical mass large enough to make such a category workable.
• Secondly, I felt that all sign language users are in some way part of a global community with shared interests, and having a single template would enable us to easily see all sign language users on one page (category:User sgn).
• Note also that no-one is communicating on wikipedia in sign languages; for me it's more about identifying expertise and interest from users who may contribute to pages about sign language/s.
• The convention on Wikipedia:Babel is to use either the two- or three-letter ISO 639 codes in the template. ISO 639-2 has only one code for all sign languages, "sgn". There is a provision for appending other codes but it starts getting long (eg. Plains Sign Talk is sgn-US-SD) and the templates really work best with three-letter codes. Wikipedia users making up their own codes is frowned upon as the same letters might be used for other languages in future classifications under ISO 639 (see discussion above).

One easy way to keep the single template is to remove the "a sign language" comment, and just make the language name link to the category:User sgn page. It looks like this:

This way it doesn't matter what the user calls the language, it always links to the same page, which has a note about sign languages being different to avoid confusion. Any thoughts?

By the way smidgeon, smidgen and smidgin are all correct according to wiktionary. Clearly I have too much time on my hands. :P ntennis 08:07, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Then you're obviously not signing enough! :)

I like your solution. People are unlikely to use acronyms if the words "sign language" don't follow, and they will probably use the name the language appears under in Wikipedia, assuming it has an article. You might want to put a comment in the template page that acronyms are to be avoided.

Yes, it would be nice to have all signers lumped together. However, the vast majority of those will be ASLers. It might be nice to split off ASL, to make it easier to find people with expertise in other languages. (Otherwise this could become a real headache.) If BSL/BANZSL ends up with a lot of people, that might should follow. SLs from non-Anglophone countries are likely to always remain scarce in en.Wikipedia, so searching through them should not be a problem. kwami 09:07, 2005 July 30 (UTC)

OK I've updated the templates to the above format. Now having a look at getting them to work in Babel template. ntennis 01:15, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I further simplified the syntax and then had to edit every page using the template to stop them getting messed up! Good argument for not releasing the prototype i guess (whoops). Also created a temporary workaround for the Babel incompatibility, at least until the new wikimedia software comes online. ntennis 05:51, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Better Babel solution 2 Proposal for making a better template so all languages aren't just lumped together in the category 3 Sorry 4 Spelling out the words 5 Yet another solution 6 sgn-N vs. sgn 7 sgn-0 8 "User ASL" infoboxes 9 sgn-4 — "near native" 10 types of sign language

[edit] Better Babel solution

User:MarSch pointed out on my user talk page that it's easier to use the subst keyword, then add the variable. Genius. I've updated the category pages with new instructions. ntennis 02:56, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal for making a better template so all languages aren't just lumped together in the category

When starting writing this I hoped that it would be possible to use a sort key in the template to group the languages perhaps, but after reading a bit more (It is described on this page on meta.), I realized it wasn't possible, now at least. If the wiki software of WP is changed in the future it might be interesting, though.

Or the template could be changed, to link to an subcategory of sgn-X (don't really have ideas how to decide how to name it though). That way you would have more overview, at least when there are more users here (and it would be more applicable for a possible future mis template, where there supposedly is more variation). Not a really nice solution though. TERdON 00:12, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry

I had mistakenly changed around the templates, believing there to be an error in the template, as even sgn-4 was missing. ntennis was kind enough to revert my edits, and drop me a line on my talk page, which I appreciate. I thought that the fact that {{{1}}} was in mine and other babel pages was an indication that the template was left unfinished, instead of just as an add point for the particular branch of sign language. What I wonder is why ASL doesn't have a different babel template than French sl, per se. Why isn't this template in the language in which it was created? If the spoken languages can have their own individual language babel templates, why can't sign language? Conversely, the need to reduce the number of templates is also great, but I feel it would be much more beneficial to the whole community to give sign language its own templates. On the other hand, it might be nice to spell out the words using the respective sign language hand motions (like other babel templates). This may be more difficult than imagined, but I think it would be a clever solution/idea. I had created {{sgn-4}} by copy-and-pasting {{sgn-3}} and making changes from there. I had made the correct changes the first time, but when I clicked "save page", my connection timed out, and I was forced to re-do the whole page, this time filled with errors. Addressing ntennis's concern about sgn-4, I believe that that is a fair assesment as well. Why are the wordings different for different templates? I believe this should be corrected, and we should come to a solution. Adding the fact that I had pulled an all-nighter editing was no help either—those edits were made at 5 AM EST—and I can all but assure that it will not happen again. Please accept my appology, and again, sorry. Sunglasses at night 04:20, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling out the words

Might it be possible to spell out the words or letters using sign language? Or would that require too many letters. Again, I realize that each language has its own gestures, but I wonder if we could have some sort of collaboration to put the sign language template in sign language—much like the Spanish Babel template is in Spanish. If this seems like a stupid idea, I'm open to that, but just tell me what you think. -Sunglasses at night 21:16, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

This would be fabulous but very tricky. No signing communities use a written form of their language as far as I know (though I did hear that SignWriting is fairly widely used for Nicaraguan Sign Language), so it would mean embedding a video into the templates. Too cumbersome. But getting a video to show a sample of each language on their respective pages would be awesome. You could possibly use a fingerspelling font (where such fonts exist) for languages such as ASL or BSL whose names are acronyms, but it would have to be embedded as an image because very few people have these fonts installed in their browser. ntennis 23:59, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

How is it possible to display fonts like Greek, Arabic, Korean, and Chinese? When I copy and paste, it winds up as question marks as well. Other times, I tried to copy and paste, but it didn't work sometimes. Maybe ASL fonts can be like that too, requiring people to have download the necessary fonts, otherwise seeing question marks or empty boxes? It probably would cause some people unnecessary grief at figuring out why a language isn't displayed. It probably isn't that important, and we probably would have to create a link asking people to download the ASL fonts. --lux 22:34, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

It seems a bit much to ask people to download a font, just so they can see the three letters "A", "S", and "L" in the infobox. i think an image (photo) would be better. See French Sign Language for an example; it's not a great image but you can see the idea). Alternatively, type ASL on your computer in the ASL fingerspelling font, and make it into a PNG image. ntennis 00:37, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

This wouldn't work for all sign languages as the native name may involve some movement (eg. Auslan) which obviously can't be shown with a still image. Personally, I think it is important on language pages that people can get an idea of what a language looks like, and it's harder with sign languages than spoken languages because the only real way to do this is with video. Photos with arrows showing movment might be a good compromise. ntennis 00:37, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

SignWriting sounds interesting. Does it have to be video, or can it be a series of image? Moreover, I think it might have to be small, too small to read. Then again, Chinese and Japanese characters can be just as small. --lux 22:34, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

See SignWriting for an example of how it looks. It does not involve video. ntennis 00:37, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I see. I thought you were talking about Nicaraguan Sign Language and SignWriting requiring video. I was confused about that. But it makes sense. Having photos with arrows showing movements or using SignWriting sounds good.

[edit] Yet another solution

I don't know how many sign languages people actually speak, but how about for each one make a separate family of templates that uses the Template:User_sgn* templates? For example, Template:User asl-1 would contain:

{{User sgn-1|ASL}}

That would get it, wouldn't it? Jdavidb (talk) 20:59, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes it would! Thankyou for this excellent idea. I will make some templates for ASL. There are probably hundreds of sign languages in use but there's no need to make all the templates at once. The good thing about this solution is it doesn't preclude users from continuing with the old system, and users of 'minority' sign languages can continue doing things in this way. Cheers! ntennis 23:54, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I propose creating and have created a page for sgn-0 for all the deaf people that don't know sign language. I believe it is important for late-deafened people that may not learn sign language for communication, for people who was cochlear implantized from a young age, and others. If there is something wrong, let me know. --lux 22:17, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] sgn-N vs. sgn

I thought that Category:User_sgn-N meant native speaker, while Category:User_sgn itself simply means that the users speaks a sign language without regard to fluency.

I thought that it was better to use a data abstraction model for sgn than to create four links separately. If I broke something, I'm sorry about that.

How do I find out how changes affect other users' template? I would like to know how you knew that over 30 users were affected so that I can check on their pages and make sure things go well?

I will fix it so User_ASL-X will have links to User_sgn-X rather than redirect. I don't understand why Category will get confused just because of a redirect. Does Template also get confused if I use a redirect? I'll see what I can do to fix some things. --lux 21:54, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for joining the discussion here. These templates do have weaknesses, so I welcome new ideas about how to improve them. Just to make my original complaint clear: I objected to your removal of the language parameter from the "user sgn" templates. I'll respond to your points one by one.

1. Yes, Category:User sgn-N is for native speakers and Category:User sgn is for all signers. But the text you changed was instructions for users to add templates to their pages, not categories, and there is no user sgn-N template. The standard format for other languages is "user xx" templates for native speakers. I've added curly brackets to the page to make this more clear.

2. I'm not sure what you mean about the data abstraction model. Can you explain it a bit more please?

3. The east way to see who is using these templates is to look at all the users on this category page; most (if not all) are using the infoboxes. I said there were 30 because it was 30 last time I counted; now there are actually 70 people using them! I'm happy to see that they are useful :) More generally, if you want to know where a template is being used, go to the template page and click on "what links here" on the left-hand column.

4. Your redirects were fine, and were a good first step in creating the user ASL categories. However, I think we can make the User ASL categories more useful. This issue is a large topic so i'll start another thread below.

By the way, you may like to contribute to a proposed WikiProject on sign language, Deaf culture and deafness. It is still in rough draft stage, but if enough people are interested in collaborating on pages relating to these topics, it might be a good way be coordinate our efforts. See User:Ntennis/Deaf WikiProject proposal and add your ideas. Cheers, ntennis 02:04, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

1. Yes, I read the entire discussion, and found out someone else also thought {{{1}}} meant unfinished template. We need a way to let people know not to change it. I'm wondering if that would be put in the Edit Summary or a warning. Oh! How about putting in a commenting tag using <!-- Don't do this! --> to let people know. I'm putting it in Template:User_sgn-3 and I've tested it. It appears to work to no ill effect, and allows people to know why they shouldn't change it.

2. Oh, it's exactly as what you did with the template that I screwed up and you fortunately reverted. I changed the links on Babels to use {{babels|ASL|ASL|American Sign Language}} so that it would dynamically expand if new sgn-X is created, meaning that no one has to remember to go to Babels to add a new link. Unfortunately, they created broken links because ASL links to ASL. So I had to go to those broken links and create new pages that would redirect to sgn. It may seem more cumbersome, but I think it's better than working to create a new link one by one. It's like CSS in some ways. It's also prettier. Another cumbersome thing was that the Babel link to "American Sign Language Language", so I just created another redirect. I know it's bad. :-/ --lux 08:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the commented-out warnings to some of the template pages. Do you know about the <noinclude> tag? It allows content on template pages that is not included when the template is called. I think this is preferable to using <!--commented out--> text, because many people use the "user sgn" templates with the subst keyword as per the instructions, which substitutes the template code into their homepage, including the commented-out text. Whereas the text between <noinclude> and </noinclude> is not called by the subst keyword. If you want to see it in action, I just added it to the "user sgn" template for native signers that you forgot to add the warning to. ntennis 01:22, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

That's even better! I didn't know about the noinclude tags. I'll change the wording a little (to sound less caustic) and wikify the sign languages as well. I'm thinking of adding examples, but I think the link on the template itself may suffice.--Lux 09:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] sgn-0

I have added this template to the list. I will be creating (at some point) a "This user is hearing impaired" userbox for my own user page, and will be placing that one alongside this one: it's useful for organising wikimeets. -- Francs2000 01:30, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

That makes me think about how "hearing impaired" is received as a word worldwide. To the Deaf community in USA, it is considered a negative term. However, some people do still use it as a label for themselves, even if they're aware of the negative connotations among some Deaf people. Moreover, hearing impaired is a more universally-understood term than hard of hearing, and is actually considered by some hearing people to be better than calling people deaf. How does UK and Australia regard the term "hearing impaired"? We might need to create a userbox for "This user is hard of hearing" as well. --lux 08:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Well I must say I made a faux pas there. In the UK, "this user has a hearing impairment" would be OK, "this user is hearing impaired" would not be. Anyway the boxes that have been created are tabled below:

{{user Hearing Impairment}}

{{user Deaf}}

Note that I didn't create them myself, I just put a request up for them: the image could have been better imo. -- Francs2000 15:40, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

In Australia, I often see the term "hearing impaired" used where people in the US would use "hard of hearing", but the terminology chosen can also indicate a cultural attachment or a worldview rather than an audiological assessment. Eg, a "deaf" (or "Deaf") person is attached to the Deaf community, while a "hearing impaired" person is attached to the Hearing world — even if they have less hearing than the "deaf" person. The former implies a linguistic/cultural model and the latter implies a medical deficit model. Thus, the use of the hearing aid image is probably not appropriate for the "deaf" user infobox.

There can be some stigma in calling oneself "hearing impaired" in the Deaf community, as it may be seen as a lack of deaf pride and a certain kind of self-denial. There are plenty who wouldn't care either way. That's just my subjective impression! I know that discussion over these terms has been quite heated on Wikipedia, and the result is half way between a compromise and a stalemate, so you might like to weigh in on discussion on those pages. -ntennis 00:53, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

How interesting! I would put myself in those that don't care either way, but I follow the Deaf culture's perspective on these "labels" because I want to be sensitive to the Deaf community and avoid offending people unintentionally. --Lux 09:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "User ASL" infoboxes

So far, the "user ASL" infoboxes have been incompletely implemented. It's partly my fault for not creating the user ASL categories earlier. The idea, starting with Jdavidb's post above, was to make the "user ASL" templates call on the "user sgn" templates and automatically add the |ASL parameter. This allows the user to easily add their ASL language box to the Babel template, and avoid the extra steps that are otherwise required. So far so good; this part is working well.

However, to get the full functionality from the new "user ASL" templates, they should put the user page in four categories: User sgn, User sgn-x, User ASL and User ASL-x. This stage hadn't been implemented yet, but we might as well start this now and Lux has already created the categories. If we want to know which wikipedians are ASL users, we should be able to look at the "Category:User ASL" page and see all the user names together. I just added the extra "user ASL" categories to the template for native ASL signers yesterday to see how it would work. What I realised is that the wikimedia software only puts the user name in the category page when the page containing the template is saved — it won't automatically update the category page to add the names of users who are already using the ASL. It does, however, add these categories to the bottom of their user page. Odd.

So after adding the user ASL categories to the templates, we need to go to the page of each user already using them and hit "edit" then "save" (changing nothing), so their name be added to the category page. ASL-1, ASL-2 and ASL-3 are yet to be done. Anyone who adds the template to their page from now on will of course be added automatically without having to re-save the page.

The other thing that needs to be done to complete the implementation of these templates is go to the user pages using the more general "user sgn" template with an ASL parameter like this: {{User sgn|ASL}} and replace them with the {{User ASL}} template. Any takers? ntennis 02:24, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] sgn-4 — "near native"

Well i'm about to open a can of worms so make sure you have your worm-proof protective clothing on. I don't think we need a sgn-4 category.

I should say from the outset that my bias is against user xx-4 templates for any language, as I think they are a vanity category. As far as I'm concerned, we don't need to make a distinction on wikipedia between users who can use a language like, or as, a native speaker. If you are not quite that proficient, then just put xx-3 — "advanced".

However, sign languages have an even stronger case against the "near-native" category, as they are different to spoken languages when it comes to nativeness. Most people for whom a sign language is their main or preferred language are not "native" signers; i.e. only about 1 in 20 Deaf people have Deaf parents (according to recent research in both Australia and the U.S). Are we to relegate 95% of the signing community to sgn-4 rather than sgn-N?

At the same time, many more hearing people than deaf have Deaf parents, and even though a sign language is their native language, it is not their main or preferred language. Additionally, many deaf people first encountered a sign language as adults, after incompletely learning a spoken language, but the sign langugage is still their main language more than the spoken one. So if we follow the strict logic of the "near native" User sgn-4 category, it would be populated by deaf people who have a sign language as their main or preferred language, and the category of usr sgn-N would be populated by hearing people who have a spoken language as their main or preferred language. It's a slightly sensitive issue, and I can't help but feel the concept of sgn-4 goes against the culture of the signing community (at least where I'm from).

Currently, no-one is using the sgn-4 template or the ASL-4 template, and I think we need an agreement on this before it becomes an issue. My proposal is to remove the sgn-4 and ASL-4 templates, and redefine sgn-N as "these users have a sign language as their main, preferred or native language.". Thoughts? ntennis 10:54, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I actually agree with your reasoning about sgn-4. I created it because i thought sgn should have everything, but that wouldn't be useful. It is a great idea to redefine sgn-N as saying that "these users have a sign language as main, preferred, or native language." Maybe there could be an explanation, or a link to an article covering the fact that many Deaf people worldwide are initially raised oralist or in a mainstreamed school. Unless Deaf people want to exclude others that didn't grow up in a fully ASL environment, I think that's great.

How do you remove the sgn-4 and ASL-4? --Lux 22:39, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

They would need to be nominated on categories for deletion and templates for deletion. Then there is a community discussion and they are removed if there's a "consensus" in favor of it. I nominated a template user sgn-4 before but withdrew my nomination when the worst problems were fixed up. It might be better just to leave them, put a note on the babel page, category page and sgn 4 template page to say explaining that they are not really in use...? --ntennis 03:19, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I noticed someone else created Category:User_sgn-4. It's possible that even if we were able to delete those pages, someone else would create them impulsively just as I did. I put in the template a noinclude tag explaining that sgn-4 is "deprecated" in all the templates and categories (that I can remember). I'm thinking I should delete the {{User_sgn|ASL-4}} to emphasize that point. Do you think we should put an explanation in the main User_sgn category that sgn-4 isn't used and to refer to the Talk page?

I'm not sure what to do with Babel other than reverting back to the original? I've just left a note saying that ASL-4 is deprecated. --Lux 06:27, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

OK. But "this template is deprecated and not to be used" is too strongly worded for my liking — we can't really make rules. Perhaps "See discussion about these templates at Category talk:User sgn, where it is felt that the level 4 sgn category is not appropriate for sign languages." ??? By the way, User:Yonah mishael just added the first user sgn 4 template to their page. --ntennis 05:11, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Another thing worth mentioning about the "near native" issue is that I've seen studies analysing the fluency of native signers vs. older learners of a sign langugage, and they all stress the imposibility of older learners achieving a native-like command of all spatial grammatical features, e.g. this article. I think it is even more difficult than achieving a native-like command of another spoken language. The strongest claim to "near-nativeness" in a sign language, would come from a CODA or native signer learning another sign language. ntennis 06:01, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Yonah must have seen the explanation because she switched to sgn-3. I think your re-wording might be better, maybe changing it to "sgn-4 is considered unnecessary"? That way, it doesn't sound like a rule? I just read that sgn-4 didn't exist on Babel before. Some people added sgn-4 just to say that they could speak it fluently, though non-natively. That led to sgn-5, the idea of a "professional" level, causing a lot of complaints of prejudice. It's true that even some deaf people who didn't learn ASL until very late may not be able to attain the level of fluency (or speed) as native speakers. They may be able to understand SL, but may be limited by their motor or cognitive skills (though that is controversial). That would lead to an overly complicated system of defining fluency as receptive skills or signing skills. The best way to end a conversation is always to say, "Where do you draw the line?" LOL.

I think it's better to wait until people actually start wanting to use it. A person could come by and say he or she learned SL at a late age (after 18 or some arbitrary number) and is considered fluent by a lot of native speakers. Another thing to think about is if this person is involved and supportive of Deaf culture but isn't fluent. I agree, it's a bit sensitive. (On the other hand, I do know that nobody is using User_sgn-0 even though people who are mistakenly believed to use a sign language do exist. Before I learned ASL, this category would have applied to me. I've met some people who tried to sign with me but I couldn't understand them.)

I'm just rambling. I'll go change my wording to "considered unnecessary" since deprecated has a negative connotation. We don't want to discourage people from using it, but we want them to understand why. --Lux 09:11, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] types of sign language

what about other types of sign language such as british sign language? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lucy-marie (talk • contribs).

You can indicate British Sign Language in the template. Instructions are on the category page, or put a note here or on my talk page if you need help. The other option is to make separate templates, like with Template:User ASL. ntennis 08:21, 24 July 2006 (UTC)