Handshape

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Handshape refers to specific shapes formed with your hand(s) that are used in signed languages and manual communication methods such as American Sign Language, Signed Exact English, and cued speech among others.

[edit] Handshapes in ASL

Handshape is used along with orientation, movement and location (and sometimes hold) to describe a sign. Every sign must have a unique set of handshape, orientation, location and movement.

American Sign Language uses the American Manual Alphabet for fingerspelling. The AMA contains 23 handshapes (orientation differences allow the formation of 26 letters); there are many more handshapes that are not used in the AMA. In total, there are about 150 handshapes, though not all are commonly used. (J. McDougal, personal communication, September 12, 2006. Interpreted simultaneously by staff interpreter from ASL to English.)

Handshapes from the AMA are named for the letter they represent (A-hand, D-hand...), while others have names (that vary) according to their shape (claw, index finger, ILY, bent, flat O, flat C...). Not all handshapes are used with every orientation, movement, or location - there are restrictions. For example, the 5 and F handshapes only make contact with another part of the body through the tip of the thumb, whereas the K and Y/8 handshapes only make contact through the tip of the middle finger, and the X handshape with the flexed joint of the index finger. The L hand always makes contact by means of the thumb, though contact with the index finger would be just as easy: when contact is made with the index finger, the position of the thumb is unimportant, so the same signer may sometimes use a handshape closer to a letter G, and sometimes closer to a letter L; the G shape is considered more basic, and therefore these are considered allophones of the G hand. (taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Sign_Language#Handshape)