GLOVES in Sign Language

Printable ASL sign for GLOVES
Printable

Before showing the "That Deaf Guy" comic strip during the warm-up at the start of the ASL class, I asked my ASL students a riddle in ASL (translated as), "In the winters, hearing people wear mittens, Deaf people use gloves, and codas use what?" The students had fun with this riddle. Answer below.

But, first what is the sign for "gloves" in ASL?

Meaning: A covering for the hand worn for protection against cold or dirt and typically having separate parts for each finger and the thumb.

Pronunciation (sign description): Dominant horizontal, "10" hand with its palm facing non-dominant upright flat hand whose palm also faces the dominant palm brushes down the non-dominant palm. Repeat with the vice versa. Note that the "10" handshape is not in its firm form. It starts from loose hand into "10" as it moves down the palm.

Deaf Humor

That answer.

Deaf culture gloves
"That Deaf Guy" Matt and Kay by Daigle. Credit: www.thatdeafguy.com, use with permission.

For those who are not familiar with "coda", codas are (hearing) children of Deaf parents. Codas are known as the "third culture" where they grow up both in hearing and Deaf worlds, speaking two languages in two modalities (visual-spatial and aural-vocal).

Related signs

Probably like many kids of Deaf parents, my kid never wore MITTENS as it failed one of the criteria -- you know what it is. Maybe GLITTENS, maybe just once or so. It took a bit of effort to put my kid's little cute HANDS (fingers and thumbs) into finger-y knit gloves. Sometimes, her two fingers accidentally ended up sliding into one knit finger, especially when one's in rush.

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