ASL Out and About – Family

In this video Jade covers the ASL signs for: mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle, sister, brother, and cousin. Learn some sign language!

If you watched ABC Signs, or know some signs, you can practice ASL by signing what the members of your family like.

See if you can tell who Jade is signing about and what each person in her family likes!

1. My cousin likes the book.

2. My cousin likes the butterfly.

3. My grandmother likes the donkey.

4. My grandfather likes cake.

5. My sister likes the dancer.

6. My uncle likes the motorcycle. 

7. My brother likes the cat.

Note to parents and teachers: ASL is a language that has its own grammar and syntax (wiki link). In ASL, the word order is: subject–verb–object. In English you would say “My cousin likes the book,” but it is signed: my cousin like book. Articles (the, an, a) are not signed before nouns. There is also no signing of the verb “to be” or the “to” in verb infinitives (the English sentence “I want to eat” would be signed as I want eat.) In English we affix an “s” to make a noun plural (this is a morpheme). In sign language the noun itself can be the morpheme as it repositioned show more than one.  Additionally, numbers can be signed to indicate plural nouns as well. Read more on creating plurals in ASL.