Swedish sign language: How it works

Siver uses Swedish sign language at home and in school. It’s a minority language that has evolved in Sweden, and is spoken there. Swedish sign language is a language where you communicate with your hands and sight, instead of your voice and hearing. Apart from this, there’s no big difference between signed and spoken languages. Just like the words in spoken languages, signs are symbols for something.

They have a shape, for example “dog”, and a meaning. We usually say that the words or signs that exist in a language are the language’s lexicon. A sign in Swedish sign language has several parts: a shape of the hand, hand position (for example FLAT HAND); a movement (such as PATTING), and often a certain place, on or in front of the body (e.g. LEG). ...in this case it becomes the sign DOG. For every sign there is also a movement with the mouth, a mouth movement.

The mouth movement is often similar to what the mouth looks like when saying the word in spoken Swedish, but not quite. And not always – some signs have a mouth movement that only exists in the signed language. The mouth movement is an important part of the sign in Swedish sign language. There are several signs that are identical apart from the mouth movement, for example the signs SCHOOL, [...] STUDY [...] and READ. The rest of the face and different head movements also have important functions in the language.

At the same time as you express something with your hands, your eyebrows, eyes, where your gaze is directed, the mouth, cheeks, nose, head movements and your upper body can have an equally important meaning, such as different grammatical functions. They may completely change what type of sentence you’re expressing. They can for example show that you’re asking a yes/no question, or a query question such as who, where, why and how. Or simply work as a “not”, that you’re negating the sentence, to express the opposite. And much more.

Can you see what a sign in sign language means? No, not really. Some signs are similar to what the sign describes. They are iconic. The sign can for example look like the thing or activity that is described.

But mostly you need to know what the sign means already to be able to see the similarity. Other signs have no connection at all between the sign and what it describes. – these signs are called arbitrary. So for a non-signing person it is impossible to understand Swedish sign language. ... To spell out something in Swedish sign language, you use the Swedish hand alphabet. Here, every sign corresponds to a letter, and it’s used to spell out names, or words that there isn’t already a sign for, such as loan words.

Swedish sign language is not signed Swedish. There are signs that there aren’t words for in Swedish, or where there isn’t an exact translation. The word order can be different. There are in fact large differences both in vocabulary, and how the language is constructed. But what do you do to whisper?

To shout, be ironic, express surprise or doubt? In spoken language we use voice, stress, and language melody to express such things. All of that can be expressed in sign language too, but with your face, head movements, body posture, or small changes in how the signs are made. Sometimes Siver and Selma are very glad that they know sign language. For example when they are in a loud environment, such as a concert, or at a busy café where hearing people need to shout to each other; here, Siver and Selma can easily talk to each other anyway.