MemeMachineGo!

A British TV show for the deaf has banned the use of several British Sign Language signs concerning ethnicity .

The abandoned signs include “Jewish”, in which a hand mimes a hooked nose; the sign for “gay”, a flick of a limp wrist; and “Chinese”, in which the index fingertips pull the eyes into a slant. Another dropped sign is that for “Indian”, which is a finger pointing to an imaginary spot in the middle of a forehead.

[…] Other signs that have been accused of being politically incorrect - such as the sign for German, which is a fist held to the forehead with a finger pointing straight up, mimicking the shape of a Prussian spiked helmet - are widely used. The sign for disabled, in which a finger on each hand depicts a limping movement, is used by some deaf people.

Specialists in sign language have also pointed out that in China, the sign for a Westerner is a hand depicting a round eye, which has not sparked any criticism from deaf people in Britain.

[…] Evelyn Gee, the chairman of the Jewish Deaf Association which published
the first guide to Jewish cultural signs in December, said that the preferred sign for “Jewish” was the hand resting against the chin and then making a short movement down in the shape of a beard.

She said that she would be offended if someone put their hand to their nose to sign the word Jewish. “I think that now that this book has been accepted by the Chief Rabbi, people should stick to it.”

(N.B.: British Sign Language is a different language from American Sign Language .)

When is a stereotype a slur? I’d be offended by an English speaker referring to Asians as slant-eyes or Jews as hook-noses. But we’ve got perfectly good words that are accepted as value-neutral. In sign-language, invoking slanted or round eyes seems like an obvious and not inherently judgemental choice.

The hooked nose makes my knee jerk, but couldn’t Jewish women be offended by a beard signifying Jews (Ms. Gee notwithstanding)?

And, as I often wonder in these cases, were there real live cases of people being offended? Or did they go looking for this problem?

(Via Languagehat )