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VILLAGE: The American Sign Language (ASL) sign for "village"
Comments from Bill
(William G. Vicars, EdD)
If you asked a skilled ASL signer how they sign "village" you might see them show you a rooftop with a cute little circular movement.
However, if you were to watch that same signer refer to the concept of a village during typical everyday signing -- you would likely just see them do a quick, small version of the sign for CITY.
In real life it is rare to sign village and even rarer to see a cute little circular movement of a rooftop. So rare as to make that "circular rooftop: sign functionally a "myth."
In real life village is often just fingerspelled.
In real life village is often just shown as a quick, small version of city.
In real life village sometimes is shown as "LOCATION" (in the area of") after establishing some context.
In real life you might even (gasp!) see someone mouth village while signing "city."
Hey, just keeping it real.
Sure, if you are telling a story to kids and you want to do a cute little sign showing a bunch of huts in a circle -- feel free. In most everyday signing though if the term "village" is important to your message -- spell it. If the exact term isn't important then just do a quick, fast, small version of the CITY sign.
Notes:
At the 7:04 mark of the following video we see "village" being signed using a condensed form of CITY using slightly bent handshapes, two taps, and little or no lateral (sideways) movement:
https://youtu.be/2v-1JetO4fY?t=419
Around the 2 second mark of this video we see "village" being signed using a very common sign for CITY in which the hands touch and twist while moving sideways:
https://youtu.be/aoronqLrDQo
At the 25:15 mark of the following video we see "village" being signed using an initialized version. Using "V" hands.
Before you jump to criticize, consider that the signer is Dr. Khadijat "Kubby" Rashid, Gallaudet Faculty Senate Chair (having just been introduced by Gallaudet President Alan Hurwitz at Gallaudet's Welcome Back Address September 2, 2014) in a video hosted by the Gallaudet University Channel)
https://youtu.be/uQ_I-KkAuRQ?t=1514
Over at The Daily Moth, Renca Dunn and Alex Abenchucahn both tend to spell "village" or sign city, or sometimes use a small version of the "location / area" sign that uses a palm down 5 hand that moves in a circle. See the 4:51 mark of this video:
https://youtu.be/aUCUP7JCAYo?t=288
At the 1:09 mark of a video from the SportsDeaf (international sign) channel we see "village" signed with a very small double twist and no lateral movement:
https://youtu.be/t-gv3GtfRuc?t=69
At the 19:37 mark of this video we see Dawn Birley signing "village" using a small tap-twist-tap movement (with no sideways movement).
https://youtu.be/JO9AggduCSQ?t=1176
In this video from the Ontario Association of the Deaf we see "village" being signed using the common CITY (tap-move_sideways-tap) sign and mouthing Village:
https://youtu.be/egtA9WSLbr4?t=237
At the 50 seconds mark of the following video we see Rogan Shannon do "village" using a small, fast version of city that brings together the tips of the flat hands a single time using a very reduced twist and moves on to the next sign.
https://youtu.be/KzLzrS8mi7I?t=49
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