On Tue, 8 May 2001, Jerry Spillman wrote:
> Nancy and I have two acquaintances in common who have been involved
> with Mexican Sign Language, Dr. Don Cabbage and Dr. Wayne Gilbreath.
> [...] It was illustrated by a Mexican deaf
> man, Mr. Victor M. Palma Gonzalez.
In 1998 I took a one-week Mexican Sign Language course that was
organized by Don, Wayne and Don's wife Betty at the Apache Creek Deaf and
Youth Ranch in southwestern New Mexico. It was definitely organized more
for missionaries than for linguists! Victor was the instructor, and he
was very good. He's fluent in ASL, and can read and write English and
Spanish. I think he lives in El Paso or Ciudad Juarez.
The book that Jerry mentions is an illustrated "sign glossary" of
the type you find all over the USA for ASL. Victor's illustrations are
good, but it's almost impossible to learn signs from illustrations. Don
also distributes a video version, which shows Victor performing each sign
in isolation with English voiceovers from Don and Spanish voiceovers from
a woman I didn't know.
Even a video sign glossary also doesn't help with learning the
grammar of the language, and there are significant differences between ASL
and LSM. As far as I know, there is currently no grammar of LSM
available.
With all those disclaimers, the book and video are still very
useful. And the one-week workshops are valuable. Don, Betty and Wayne
have a web page at <https://www.missionsociety.com>. You can order the
books and videos, and find out about the workshops, at
<https://www.iasl.net/>.
--
-Angus B. Grieve-Smith
Linguistics Department
University of New Mexico
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