ASL Idioms

Many people have asked me about idioms in ASL. My teachers have preferred the term "idiomatic expression."

An idiom: A speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements; a group of words whose meaning cannot be predicted from the meanings of the constituent words; an expression with a meaning that cannot be guessed from the meanings of the individual words.

There are some items called "idioms" by those of us who are not native users because of what we perceive as separate parts. An example is one of the signs for "forever" which resembles the sign for cow, then extended in movement away from the forehead. To English speakers, it looks like "COW-ON" and so is idiomatic. But most Deaf I ask laugh when I bring up its resemblence to "COW" - they've never thought about it6 that way.

If you would liket os ee one group's translation of several English idioms, try ASLPro.com and their phrase dictionary. Not all of them are produced the same way in every part of the country, so be sure and verify local differences within your Deaf comnmunity.