Do you really need to ask Joppsta? is he is deaf his Obvious First language would be Sign Language. which is a actually Language dispite many ppl beliefs.

Please remember this. Sometimes when you guys think Nocis saying something you dont like, its just a different way of speaking he has.

I was having a "tl;dr asshattery" moment, leave me alone

I didn't think someone would regard that as a first language, although i haven't met many people that are deaf from birth so that's probably the issue here...

Well it is a Official Language thats is used worldwide and is considered if you are deaf to be your first language. because its the first language you know.

Yeah but you don't think of these things dude, especially not at about 2am in the morning...

Yeah.. ASL = American Sign Language that I used when I was 1 year old and it's the language that I understand because it's visual that requires NO audio.. It's a 3-D language that is pretty much different from spoken/written language. I hate to translate ASL into English because English will require much more pages just to translate what my ASL storytelling would tell. It's like trying to write a description of what oil painted picture tells. I could explain it with ASL much faster than I can with English..

For more information on ASL.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Sign_Language . Yes, I really love that language and use it all the time at work and at home. My wife is also Deaf person and my kids are using ASL to communicate with us.. Most of our friends are using ASL too. My English got improved somewhat when internet forum system was introduced. I learned from it better than I ever did in school.

ASL seems pretty dumbed down, I've had some sign language lessons before, in the UK at least.. and we use the fingers for all the vowels when it comes to spelling. Makes more sense i'd say.. A,E,I,O,U .. got 5 fingers for a reason ^^


Or from what i can remember anyway, this is years ago. I have never understood why languages evolve and change so drastically, i mean, i understand the concept of dialects etc.. but i have NEVER and will NEVER get why or how American English came about... i just don't get the reasoning behind changing a perfectly good language around and removing some letters from words. The only reason i can come up with is laziness.

well for one Americans rebelled from England wanting to be different and one of those ways was to change a few words and pronounce things differently. i prefer Truck over Trollie. Bathroom over Lou. and i find some british english people harder to understand then a freaking Cajun.

Wow. Are you really that ignorant that kept assuming several things wrong lately? ASL is NOT a dumb down language.. It's a well-developed language just like other spoken language. Few lessons doesn't make you a master of ASL at all.. I get my eyes rolled up when so many hearing people kept coming to tell me saying, "Look! I took few semsters of the ASL! I am master now!" then they talked to me rather very inferior. I spoke back to them in my native speed and they were all lost what I was saying so I had to slow down big time and forced to "dumb" down my language so they can understand what I am saying.. You haven't really seen the interaction of deaf people in their native language.

I also get my eyes rolled up when almost always when they came to me saying, "I know ASL!" by only fingerspelling and they assumed that they knew enough about ASL by doing alphabet alone.. It's equivalent to learn other language's alphabet and you are master of that language.. Huh? No..

ASL is something that has words of true meaning that spoken language couldn't. For example.. If you want to label a tree, you just had to invent word "TREE" and slap word on it to define it.. ASL doesn't do that. ASL is heavily derived from gesture. If they see tree so they made shapes "Tree" that looks like it and make a word out of it. It's really beautiful language.. ASL doesn't even use IS, ARE, The, etc cuz of body language and expression will tell it anyway that really speed up the communication between two people by using every tools in 3-D space to send/receive message. It takes long time to have 2-D message across to ear compared to 3-D message to eye.. It's similar to radio VS TV.. TV obviously has more information sent out per sec than radio ever can.. Of course, there are some cons about ASL is that it cannot be written.. But thankfully to technology that really transforms the ASL. We now have video technology that starts to record all of our ASL to make it a "written" language..

One awesome example I want to tell is that we had Deaf Way at Gallaudet University (only Deaf/HH university in the world). It had over 5k foreign deaf people coming to Gallaudet as social event. There are so many different foreign language at the social event but we were able to communicate with each other pretty easy by adapting to the "universe" language: gesturing. Sign language of any language masters the gesture so we were able to downgrade our sign language to gesture then we were able to communicate to each other all day/night learning so much about their cultures, etc. Let's put all hearing foreigners together.. Can they communicate to each other that way? I don't think so.. They would require interpreters.. We don't even need interpreters to communicate with other foreign deaf people of their own language..

Yeah about spoken language being "dumb" down lately THANKS to technology especially texting that really transformed written language a lot. Ironically, ASL is being "smart" up thanks to technology.. We got Videophone technology almost two decades ago in our Deaf Community. Almost every deaf resident has their own Videophone at their homes while every hearing residents that I was seeing had wireless phones (that was decade ago). Hearing people who visited my house got shocked how advanced my communication technology was especially videophone and they never saw it. Now, it's mainstreamed and we are seeing it everywhere.. There were very hot market in Videophone industry 15 yrs ago all thanks to deaf customers that really contributed alot of $ into R&D that enabled the videophone technology advancement that finally benefits hearing customers later on.. There are several deaf-owned companies that do R&D in Videophone and other communication technologies such as speech-recognition software, etc and they do sell them..

Funny. Alexander Bell was doing research on the telephone technology to help his Deaf wife (Yep, she was deaf and can't speak) but side-effect of that technology that it became hot sell for hearing customers. More than often that we kept seeing new communication technology coming out that was hot for deaf customers only to end up being hot for hearing customers. 25 years ago, alphanumerical pager was very hot technology for deaf customers and almost everyone of them had it while hearing people barely had belt worn cellphones and they had NO alphanumerical texting ability and they liked our technology that we invented so it got incorporated into their cellphone nowadays and it's now popular tool of communication: texting.. It's natural for communication technology to get advanced alot thanks to deaf customers all because their biggest obstacles is communication itself so they always develop technology to overcome the
communication obstacles. I cannot wait for speech-recogition program to get well developed and matured then we would use it all the time everywhere we go. We do have those programs already but they aren't good at all. Lot of mistakes so they used us, deaf people, to test them out and try to improve them because we have incentive to be involved to get them improved alot because we know that the technology will aid us ALOT..

Reason i called it dumbed down was because of the alphabet, some of the letters looked as if you were basically trying to show how they look in English more or less, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

*shrug*

I'm not meaning to be ignorant, just making an observation. Like i said, I'm no sign language expert (nor do I ever intend to be), just stating my opinion


Uh.. I've lived in Scotland 18 years now (since i was born, in other words) and i have NEVER heard the first one, what are you saying? We call Trucks.. as in you know, the things that haul cargo.. trollies? O_o

And you spellt Loo wrong.. i have no idea where that one comes from, i assume something French. Generally speaking unless you're being really posh, you would most of the time call the bathroom .. well, the bathroom or toilet? For some reason Americans don't seem to have any idea what a real British person speaks like... and you have probably heard people from down in the South of England... they have pretty heavy accents as well.

When you shovel a dialect on top of the variations of accent in the UK, i can see why you may find a "Cajun" easier to understand (.. wtf is a Cajun? Indian or something?).

I would agree though, if you were in a room full of Aberdonians.. and we spoke the way we would normally amongst friends... no way you'd understand at all. Google Doric, it's the local dialect. Some of my elders.. like 50+ .. they speak it and EVEN I have troubles understanding them. The way i see it though, without these variations in tongue the world would be an extremely boring place.. although people from America seem to have this thing for stereotyping down pretty well, i find it hilarious when they kick out the British jokes.

My teeth are whiter than yours probably will ever be... I drink coffee and I only wear kilts to weddings? Or "skirts" as they like to call them.


I find it hilarious when Americans b!tch about immigrants though.. same for Brits. If anything, Britain was basically built on immigration and the same for America. Without immigrants, America would be a few rednecks having a weekend party every day.. and Britain would be Scottish people getting drunk and beating up the English on a daily basis #


PS: A trollie is actually what we call shopping carts... much shorter and sweeter. Also i find that word kinda funny to say

Posh? I see what Hawkeblade means now about British English. : P

Suppose there's no Posh people in America, just rednecks watching NASCAR.

Just updated my original post with latest picture of the Exotica along with the comparison of old Exotica dated 9/27/2010. Huge improvement since.

Galaxy Destroyer in the house!!!! Woot woot!!!

i understand what noc is saying...as even though english IS my first language 4 of my friends and my brother are deaf. i have been doing sign language for 12 years......obviously not as long as noc but what i guess (and know) he is trying to SAY is that. engles uses words, where ASL uses your body....instead of SAYING i love you, you SHOW i love you knowing both languages fluently i can say i prefer ASL but it is not as widely used as english in america......i cannot "show" my girlfriend i love her i have to settle with saying it.....its like i know the word love in russian but to me it has NO meaning because i do not know the language.....same for you people who have only taken 2-3 semesters of ASL you dont KNOW the language you understand it but you cant feel it......you know it when it is second nature like english is for you.......noc i feel for you bro...just sayin im on your side

Fortunately , Like peg legs and hooks for hands, medical technology will make the need for ASL disappear in the upcoming decades.

In communist Russia... eh nevermind

Geez. How ignorant can you be?

Deaf people already have an established culture seperate from non-Deaf people with their own language, customs, norms, etc. It would be like saying... Oh, medical technology can change skin color at will. Lets 'cure' black people to make them all white. While we're at it, lets make all Hispanics white too! Erase all the black and hispanic culture when everyone's all nice pale white Causcasians.

Verstiek, unfortunately, YOU are the ignorant one. deafness is a handicap, a result of a failure of one of the senses. that's the difference between a racial group and a culture based on adaptation to a handicap. Having all your senses is a human right, so deafness, blindness, and all the other handicaps will be cured. so thank god for medical technology. I work for a Opthamologist, believe me people never come in and say " I'm going blind, I can't wait to join blind culture." When the need is no longer there, it will disappear.

Sad for you, Double Tap. I understand the medical perspective but deafness is a very unique type of disability (not a handicap really) that sets us apart from other type of disability. Deafness actually benefits me in my life that non-deafness wouldn't serve me well. It shaped my character path to awesome life.. Look at Gallaudet University with over 2k deaf students. It's actually a Deaf university. There even has a black university.. Other racial university. etc. But name one other type of disability university in the world other than deaf university? There is none.. It has its unique culture that other type of disability doesn't have..

Heck, my brother is envy of my deafness cuz he grew up seeing lot of positive things that occurred to me that he wouldn't have (he's a hearing). Just being a simple deaf person creates totally different lifestyle that we learned to live in and create our own world so we can feel "normal" without any prejudice. Gallaudet University is the truly unique deaf world that I ever visited in my entire life. I attended Gallaudet University and graduated there. When I first visited, I was shocked how normal I was where deafness is not a disability in that world because everyone else there are also deaf or knows ASL as primary language instead of secondary.. I felt so belonged to and it boosted my pride in deaf big time that helped me to be very aggressive and do very well in hearing world just being myself simply because I don't view deaf as handicap.. Disability and handicap are TWO big different things. Deaf is a disability because it's outside norm of human analogy design but deafness IS not a handicap because we don't feel penalized by being a deaf. To me, deaf is an advantage instead of handicap that helped my life to do much better than I normally would as a hearing person. Funny, I had hearing friends to visit Gallaudet and they said, "Wow! I feel like a handicap or a foreigner" and I grinned. Heck, one of biggest advantage that I had as deaf person is that I was able to get FREE college that gov't paid for that enabled me to get wonderful job at NASA for life.. I grew up very poor in very poor family in the west and I wouldn't even afford to go to college myself if I was hearing and I wouldn't never work for NASA and be able to do lots of contribution to USA with inventions. Yes, my families were so jealous that they all couldn't go to college but me.. I was very first Wood family ever attended college and graduated from all thanks to deafness. In fact, I'm currently highest income member of my families (all of them are hearing and I'm only deaf person in entire family). My deafness made it happen..

Also, at NASA, I was able to have intense focus on work that deafness really served me well to ignore any rumors, distraction, etc so I can become better productive person than I would be as hearing person.. There are many other benefits to list such as deaf person that my brothers and friends (all hearing) didn't have. Sure, they have their own list of benefits that we, deaf people, didn't have. Heck, man and woman are two different type of people with their own set of benefits so is deaf person vs hearing perspon are just two different type of people with their own set of benefits. Both aren't even wrong..

Doctors often asked me if I want to hear again via cochlea implants and I turned all of their offers down because I didn't even want to change my life PERIOD. I LOVE my life that I couldn't have asked for so why change it?? Also, I feel much more prestigious at NASA being deaf person than hearing person because I am doing things that no other deaf people had done before that really is a big incentive. My personalty is that I like to do things first before everyone else. It will be harder to do as hearing person that will be much less incentive to do..

So.. Deaf IS a disability but NOT a handicap.. Deaf community hates the word: handicap because they don't even feel like one. Hearing medical community since 1800's continuously trying to destroy Deaf community by trying to convert us into "fake" hearing people. FYI.. So, we have huge resentment against them. Their continued attempt on converting us really slowed us down big time.. Before the medical community's intervention in France. Deaf community there was very advanced and well cultured and civilized. International medical community convention passed to ban sign language and introduced oral only as a tool for deaf people destroyed that very unique, advanced deaf community. It's in their nature to try to keep people same and would do anything to destroy anything that viewed different.. Sad but true is that humans are designed to be very diversity but people don't accept it in general so that led to wars, kills, prejudice etc. Just don't try to change people who are just different.. Just accept who they are and learn to co-exist then world will be a better place. Yes, Deaf people are different from hearing people so don't try to change us.

Deaf community actually helped USA in many different ways especially in communication technology. Without them, our communication technology won't be as advanced as we are seeing right now.. Deaf has a purpose in the world to serve their roles in different ways..

Know what's funny? I met many non-deaf disabled people and they all said, "I would give anything to become normal" but I met many deaf people including myself and they said, "Heck, no. I would rather keep my deafness.. Thank you". Deaf is unique type of disability that sets us apart from other type of disability.. There are deaf people who NEVER tasted deaf culture or deaf community will say, "I want to become normal so I can feel belong to that world better and understand them" but once they tasted true deaf world, their feelings will change into positive light and they become proud of who they are..

Again. I definitely don't want to lose my deafness or "so-called cured". I'm already cured when I tasted deaf world when I was kid that I was brainwashed by those speech therapists and doctors when I grew up telling me that I was handicapped and never be as good as they would and that really hurt my self-esteem but when I finally tasted deaf world.. My self-esteem shot up realizing that I was actually normal but just different so I embraced who I was that really transformed me as a person into very productive person for USA.. Yes, I forgive those ignorant people who put me down by trying to change me. They simply didn't understand what was right way to help me. They would do it right if they helped me to embrace my deafness and teach me anything that works for deaf people then I would grow up in a healthy way. Too many deaf people who weren't well educated all because of hearing administration spent too many hours trying to change those deaf students that shun their learning process so much that has permanent damage on their ability. If the administration wasn't wasting any time to change deaf students, deaf students will be much better citizens to co-exist with hearing citizens.. Gallaudet University (So is RIT/NTID) is one of excellent example that they never wasted their time trying to change deaf students and they have programs that are tailored to deaf students so those students can become productive citizens.. Gallaudet university did something right that many K5-18 schools failed to do. There are some great k5-18 schools (very few) that really helped deaf students were all because they never wasted time to try to change those students.. I spent 6 years from 8 to 14 yrs old trying to speak because hearing school forced me to take speech classes that I wasted so much time for extremely tiny progress that I could have used that time to learn English or math or whatever to become better person.. Fortunately for me, I am smart and capable of learning things quickly so I compensated lot of loss time by self-learning outside school on my own time so I was able to graduate. Lot of deaf students failed to graduate all because they went through lot of wasteful programs (spent too much time trying to speak) and their math, English, history, etc skills are very poor cuz they didn't spend equal time like hearing people to learn those very important subjects so they failed to receive diplomas. Their brains are actually exactly the same as hearing brains but they just had WRONG programs developed by hearing people to train them to become productive citizens. Gallaudet university has lot of great programs mostly developed by deaf people that really helped deaf students to learn the same way as hearing students would learn from hearing universities..