Cavesa wrote:-The breakfast=the main opportunity to see speakers of various languages. Oh, and the food was so good! The most interesting crowd (really a large group!) were speakers of a Sign Language. I assumed the Italian Sign Language. A much quieter crowd, than the one old man just playing random youtube videos very loudly on his phone there, sure . But still, not as quiet as people may expect. The Sign Languages, on top of all the other "mysteries" around them, have a specific non verbal part. I would have to learn one, to start distinguishing normal hand gestures from speaking. It is also interesting to notice how differently the speakers position themselves in conversation (to see each other. Even between tables 8 metres away), or how they need to get attention etc. But also how do they sound. For example, laughter of a person without the experience of how laughing "should" sound, who has never felt self-conscious about it, and who doesn't realize how loud or quiet they are. It was a bit unusual at first. Or one or two people were sort of half-vocalising while signing, or perhaps also letting someone read lips. I am not sure I'll ever get to learning a sign language. Yes, I feel I should, as a doctor. But with my moving around Europe, it would be hard to pick one. But in general, people should learn them much more often.
Sign languages have always been very interesting to me but I've never had an opportunity to study -- it's wild how the anglophone world is divided between two different families, so a user of American Sign Language will get by much better with a French user than an English one, though I don't know how mutually intelligible ASL and LSF are, just that they're in the same family.