Would it make sense for “rhyme” to rhyme with “time”?
Or for “through” to rhyme with “two”?
Someone posted a ASL SLAM poetry video yesterday, and it might give some hints. This isn’t an authoritative answer, just something off-the-cuff.
When ASL is translated into English for poetry, 95% of the time it’s lost in translation. That’s why I ask the interpreters not to translate the poems. You have rhyme in the English poetry and patterns of verbal repetition. ASL is more about the movement, a visual rhyme versus an auditory rhyme.
Granted, that’s referring to ASL-native poetry versus English poetry translated to ASL. But, from that, it would seem that no, rhymes don’t make a lot of sense in the same way they do for spoken poetry assuming the person has no auditory reference for the sound of words.
Some Deaf people can still hear, in which case rhymes would make sense.
Someone who’s never heard before probably wouldn’t get rhymes in English. But then again, someone who speaks English probably wouldn’t get rhymes in ASL.
People who can hear would have an advantage though in that they’d be able to learn ASL and pick up on wordplay (like “rhyming”) that’s used in ASL. Unless a Deaf person becomes Hearing, they may never be able to experience rhymes in spoken English.
… it’d be easier if our spelling wasn’t so darned stupid, lol
our spelling isn’t stupid, it’s just what you get when you mix latin with germanic and pepper in minor influences from a dozen other language families.
I’m sure in a few more centuries, ryme and tyme will have convergently evolved to become false cognates.
I wouldn’t have expected rhyming to be possible in any sign language. It strikes me as being too dependent on hearing the sounds for the rhyme to be possible. I’m no authority on any of the components here, and would be interested to know how fully always deaf ASL users can make or understand rhymes. I would expect them to be more focused on visual similarities, but I don’t know if that could translate from writing to signing.
Spoken rhymes rely on repeating a similar sound. I imagine a “rhyme” in sign language would probably involve repeating a similar gesture. The fun of rhymes is in the similarity and repetition, after all. If two (or more) signs involve making a similar pattern, it’s probably amusing to pair them together in the same way it’s amusing to pair two rhyming spoken words.
As the other commenter said, rhymes would be with visual similarities.
Linguistically, a rhyme is when two words share the same nucleus and coda. In regular terms, that’s the same ending vowel and the consonants that follow it.
In ASL, words aren’t formed exactly the same way, but do have similar components that can be used to make rhymes. Rhyming words could have the same motion, but a different shape, for example. Or the same position, but a different motion.
I don’t actually speak ASL, so I can’t be certain about what looks best as a rhyme, but I understand some of the principles.
I’m not sure why you’re crying, but you’re incorrect.
It is surprising to many people outside of the Deaf Community, but Deaf people can often hear. The Deaf are considered deaf once they have passed a certain decibel (dB) hearing loss. Many people who are profoundly deaf can still hear planes, dogs barking, etc. Hearing a sound does not mean that Deaf people can understand speech. A person with a significant hearing loss generally has difficulty or inability to hear speech even when aided.
https://www.gatecommunications.org/deafness
As well, people with cochlear implants are (generally?) also Deaf, but with the implant, they can hear.
Do you have a link to a more reputable site? Gate communications is an American thing.
Along the same lines, do deaf people compose poems in ASL? What aspect of that language plays the part of rhyme?
I seem to recall that there are rhymes in ASL, where signs for two things have similar motions/shapes/speeds.
It’s true. My sign name is the letter J, for my first name, but one moves the little finger in a circle up by the side of the head, like “Crazy J.” That stuff gets used all the time, but is not always as obvious to non-signing people.
I learned a tiny bit of ASL in college from hanging out with a few deaf people, then some more when we had kids and bought a bunch of kids’ sign language DVDs. Little kids are able to do some signing earlier than they’re able to manage speech, and I know that helped our kids to communicate when they were super young.
(You know all this, but I felt like saying it for the passers-by.) I know that a mistake hearing people often make is thinking that sign language is just a word-for-word substitution for whatever spoken language is primary where you live. It’s really a different language, grammar and all, definitely including those “combination” signs you’re talking about.
Treat my answer as what it is - hearsay - but the way I remember reading about it being explained, there is indeed sign-language poetry, and gestures having similar or complimentary movements were considered rhyming, which I guess also makes intuitive sense.
if you’re talking about text, then deaf rhymes are going to in a very special category. If you ignore the pronunciation, you’re going to find all sorts of interesting rhymes here and there, but they will only work on paper. Also, a deaf poet would miss countless genuine rhymes that just happen to have messy spelling.
In other languages with a more sensible spelling system even deaf people can write poetry that could potentially be appreciated by everyone. English is such a train wreck, that deaf poetry becomes a very special case.
See also: The Chaos, by Gerard Nolst Trenité
ASL has their own forms of rhymes or word play, since you don’t hear ASL but you see it. They’ll use similar looking signs.
or so my friend who teaches deaf kids told me when I asked them a few weeks ago.
