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American Sign Language uses 18 handshapes for ordinary signs, plus a few marginal handshapes taken from the
sign language
Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign l ...
s, handshape, or dez, refers to the distinctive configurations that the hands take as they are used to form words. In Stokoe terminology it is known as the , an abbreviation of ''designator''. Handshape is one of five components of a sign, along with location
In geography, location or place are used to denote a region (point, line, or area) on Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term ''location'' generally implies a higher degree of certainty than ''place'', the latter often indicating an entity with an ...
(), orientation
Orientation may refer to:
Positioning in physical space
* Map orientation, the relationship between directions on a map and compass directions
* Orientation (housing), the position of a building with respect to the sun, a concept in building de ...
(), movement (), and nonmanual features. Different sign languages make use of different handshapes.
Constraints
Possible handshapes are constrained by a variety of mechanic and neural factors.Evolutionary
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
forces have led to some handshapes being easier or more natural for humans to produce than others. These tendencies can be summarized as follows:
# The selected (extended) finger is either the thumb or the index finger
# Neighboring fingers are coupled
# All fingers have the same shape
A 2022 study of handshapes found that 85.6% of handshapes in 33 sign languages conform to these biological tendencies. Additionally, 35 handshapes were found to be represented in 89.2% of the 33 languages examined. Handshapes that did not conform to these tendencies were common in fingerspelling
Fingerspelling (or dactylology) is the representation of the letters of a writing system, and sometimes numeral systems, using only the hands. These manual alphabets (also known as finger alphabets or hand alphabets) have often been used in deaf ...
. This may be due to fingerspelling being a result of culture and explicit learning rather than arising naturally.
In American Sign Language
American Sign Language uses 18 handshapes for ordinary signs, plus a few marginal handshapes taken from the American Manual Alphabet
The American Manual Alphabet (AMA) is a manual alphabet that augments the vocabulary of American Sign Language
American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United ...
for fingerspelling.
Not all handshapes occur with every orientation, movement, or location: there are restrictions. For example, the 5 and F handshapes (the approximate shapes of the hand in fingerspelling 5 and F) only make contact with another part of the body through the tip of the thumb, whereas the K and 8 (a.k.a. Y) handshapes only make contact through the tip of the middle finger, and the X handshape only with the flexed joint of the index finger.
See also
*Classifier handshape
In sign languages, the term classifier construction (also known as classifier predicates) refers to a morphological system that can express events and states. They use handshape classifiers to represent movement, location, and shape. Classifie ...
References
{{sign language navigation Sign language