I'm in awe, over and over again!

I came across this guy a month or so ago. Now, it's been years since I've practiced or used sign language on a regular basis, but even then...I was no where near the skill level he has. His name is Michael DiMartino, and he's an interpreter out in the Los Angeles area I do believe. And he is beyond amazing. First off, I know he's obviously putting more fluidity and a little dancing into his videos (for examples, see here, here, and here). But he is also taking some very complex ideas, such addiction, and translating it not so much into words, but into ideas.

Now, not sure how familiar you my dear readers are with American Sign Language, but there is a scale of signing. Let's say on the far right side of the scale, we have what is called SEE-sign or "Signed Exact English". This is a literal translation of English into sign language. Every single word is signed including all the little "a"s, "is"es, "the"s, etc.

On the far left of our scale, we have ASL, or American Sign Language. ASL is based more on concepts and ideas that actual sentence structure and every little word detail. This is incredibly hard to achieve for people who aren't brought up signing or spending large amounts of time with people who sign pure ASL.

And now, in the middle of the scale we have Pigeon Sign. This is about where I fall (or used to) on the signing scale. Maybe even a bit closer to the SEE sign side. Pigeon uses a combination of ASL and SEE signing, and I would wager that the majority of people (especially hearing) who learn sign later on in life fall into this category.

So anyhow, now that we've had Flamingo's lesson on signing today, I just want to say how amazing this guy is. I can't follow absolutely everything in his videos, but do get enough to see how great he is and how he is putting these songs into sign. I love watching him, and look forward to more of his videos.

Oh, and the fact that he is so damn cute, that doesn't hurt the case one bit either!