ASL Lessons | Bookstore | Library | ASL University Main ►

WHENEVER: The American Sign Language (ASL) sign for "whenever"

How to sign the concept of "whenever":

There isn't a specific single sign that is typically labeled as "whenever" in ASL.

There are however some approaches to conveying the concept of "whenever."

A general approach is to sign WHEN+WHATEVER-(whenever).
Note that the "WHATEVER" sign has different labels in the Deaf Community. Another common label is "NOT-MATTER"

 

 

The WHATEVER sign means such things as: whatever, doesn't matter, regardless, anyway, no matter, ... [and similar concepts]



We can add the WHATEVER sign to the WHEN sign to create a meaning of (the time at which something happens or happened doesn't matter),



However, WHEN+WHATEVER-(whenever) may not be the best way to sign the concept of "whenever."


A sentence such as "Come whenever you want" might work better being signed as:
TIME YOU COME, THINK-SELF-(up to you).

A sentence such as "Whenever works best for you!"

PICK TIME BEST MATCH YOUR SCHEDULE.
or
THINK-SELF BEST TIME, NOT-MATTER ME. (It is up to you whatever time works best. It doesn't matter to me).

Often, with enough context, we can just sign WHEN-(uninflected) to mean whenever.
Sometimes we can just sign HAPPEN to mean whenever.

HAPPEN + [strong context] can = "whenever"

We might even choose to sign SUPPOSE to mean whenever.

SUPPOSE + [strong context] can = "whenever"

For example,
"Suppose you see this slide, I want you to take a deep breath."
SUPPOSE YOU SEE INDEX-(point at slide) (eyebrows up), I WANT YOU depiction-"Take a deep breath" BREATHE.
=
"Whenever you see this slide I want you to take a deep breath."

There are likely dozens of ways to sign "whenever."

You may even see someone simply spell "when" at a point in a sentence that was captioned as "whenever."

WHEN-(fs) + [strong context] can = "whenever"

So, remember, the right way to sign "whenever" is going to depend on the topic, the specific meaning of "whenever," how much context there is, and how much your audience knows about your topic.

---

Notes: 

 

---

---

*  Want to help support ASL University?  It's easy:  DONATE  (Thanks!)

*  Another way to help is to buy something from Dr. Bill's "Bookstore."

*  Want even more ASL resources?  Visit the "ASL Training Center!"  (Subscription Extension of ASLU)  

*  Also check out Dr. Bill's channel: www.youtube.com/billvicars
 

---

You can learn American Sign Language (ASL) online at American Sign Language University ™ 
ASL resources by Lifeprint.com  ©  Dr. William Vicars   

---