The first 30 are big. To go to, click a word - a . all . ALL-GONE . angry . BABA . bad . ball . banana . BATH . big . bird . black . BLANKET . blue . boat . book . BOTTLE . BYE-BYE . car . cat . cold . colors . COME . computer . daddy . DIAPER . DIRTY . do . does . DOGGIE . DRINK . face . family . fruit . get . GIMME . give you . GO . going . GOOD . green . happy . hat . HEY-HEY . he . HEAD-HURTS . HELLO . here . hold . hot . HUG . in . into . it . light off . light on . little . mad at . MA . ma's ma . maybe . me . mine . MORE . my . myself . night . NIGHT NIGHT . No No . nose . off . oh . other . pants . PA . pee pee . PICK-UP . play . pretty . puu puu . PUT-DOWN . read . red . right . sad . see . she . SLEEPY . THANK-YOU . there . they . thirsty . throw out . TITI . tv . uh oh . UH-UH . upon . us . want . white . wrong . YES . you .

Infants . One-Year-Olds . Two-Year-Olds . Colors . Foods . Extended Family . Stories . Generalized Signs . Comma Delimited Positions .

Proba - Basic Extensible Sign Language (BESL)

© 2005 by Charles Scamahorn

How to DOWNLOAD this whole folder to your computer.

This is the BESL home SITE

Why You Should Learn Basic Extensible Sign Language

Basic Extensible Sign Language (BESL) will help you to communicate effectively with all human beings because the basic words are easily learned and complex concepts are logical extensions of the basic words. For an example of the idea of extension see the word COLOR where any color what so ever can be expressed using extension. This presentation of BESL is designed for adults but it is arranged in the order a child would learn his first language. The basic word-signs are most easily made so they can be used by infants but they are extensible signs so they may be refined with unlimited precision by adults. This concept of extensability is similar to decimal numbers where unlimited precision to a number may be had, such as 3.14159... . These first words of Basic Extensible Sign Language (BESL) are designed to be easily formed by infants hands. It is known that very young children can communicate more easily with signs than they can with spoken words. This is because they have better control over their arms and hands at an early age than they do over their breathing, lips and tongue. Therefore, from about the age six months to about the age of thirty-six months they can use signs more effectively for communicating than spoken words. When you teach your children this BESL you will help them to be happier because they will be more able to fulfill their daily needs. They will be healthier too because you can tell them what to do and not to do at an earlier age. Also, they can learn spoken languages sooner and better because they have had this previous experience with symbolic communication. In adults it has been discovered that vocabulary is the single most accurate measure of a persons general intelligence and that is probably true with children also. We know that the average speaking child can say about one word by the age of thirteen months but some signing children can do fifteen words at 12 months. Thus, teaching your infant to do these signs will help them be happier, healthier and functionally more intelligent during the most formative years of their lives. Acquiring the habit of learning good habits is the most helpful thing a person can ever learn. Those are wonderful gifts to give your child.

This Basic Extensible Sign Language (BESL) form of Infant Sign Language (ISL) web page is designed to help normal hearing adults learn the signs necessary to communicate effectively with normal hearing children who have learned to sign. The on-line moving pictures, accompanying this web page, shows sign movements more clearly than the still pictures or a paper print-outs but after viewing the video a few times the paper print-outs will be sufficient, as a reminder of what you have seen. There are some little stories at the end of the web page which will help you to remember the signs. The page is designed to be printed out so you can have a copy of the page around the house as a helpful reminder. Also available for ready reference is a poster with 60 signs which you can put up at some handy location such as your refrigerator. If you speak a language other than English you can replace the spoken word accompanying the sign with the proper word from your personal language. A small space has been left in the print-outs for you to write your language's word beneath the ISL sign.

The Learning Sequence

making random sounds and movements,
imitating their mothers' sounds and movements,
imitating their mothers' duplicated sounds and movements,
attaching meaning to these duplicated items,
learning and linking meaning to some two-part words,
learning and linking meaning to especially emphasized words,
making some compounded single words like gimme,
learning some word pairs,
speaking in simple two-word sentences,
speaking in multi-word sentences.

The signs chosen for this basic sign language are similar to the signs used in adult sign language but they have been slightly redesigned and selected to be more easily formed by very young children. In spoken speech the usual sequence for an infant to learn language is to begin by babbling sounds and by babbling random movements. Children inherently do some signing so it is natural and easy to teach your infant how to sign. Within a few months of birth there is a period of mimicking the sounds they hear their care givers making. This is followed by a period of copying their care givers repeated syllables. Repeating syllables is a way we adults innately use to emphasize the intended verbal parts. We do this repeating of words to isolate the special communication words from the background noise and from the other non-essential words that we are using. For example the word ma becomes repeated and becomes ma-ma and pa becomes pa-pa and those repeated syllables become the childish forms of accepted adult words. We will use this repeated form only so long as it takes the child to recognise and use these first words and then move on and use the singular adult forms of ma and pa. After a child knows several of these double-spoken words they move onto other words that are not duplicated but are stressed in some consistent way. In English we tend to append the sound eee to new words to set them apart from background noise. For example the adult word for dog becomes dogeee and the adult word for cat becomes kitteee. The same is true for sign language: first there are random movements, followed by the imitating of mother's movements, then copying her duplicated movements, then attaching meaning to these duplicated movements. That is why it is so important, at the beginning, to do the sign gesture two times so as it emphasizes the fact that this is a meaningful content filled action. Also it is important to have the objects readily available when talking or signing about them so the sign and the thing it is related to are seen together.

Infants have trouble with complex coordinated two hand signs. However, many adult signs have both hands in use forming special finger movements which are also accompanied by facial and bodily gestures. These complex coordinated movements are common in standard adult sign languages but, with this Infant Sign Language these complexities have been reduced to an absolute minimum. This Infant Sign Language is similar to an adult sign language but it is done, in the beginning, with one hand only and that hand is used as if it is wearing a thick glove. Once you know a few signs and are familiar with the suggested teaching method you can begin. The first signs that an infant needs to learn are designed to be the easiest for them to form. Also, the vocabulary in these early lessons is limited to about one hundred of the most useful signs for early learning. About the time the child has learned that many signs, they will have achieved control over the more difficult to acquire speaking skills and be well along in their transition into the more widely used spoken language. As part of the design strategy these lessons are made easy for adults to learn because they will be the ones teaching the infant. At the end there will be a few infant level short stories to help you and your infant learn ISL quicker and better.

Some Suggestions For Helping A Baby Learn A Language

Place the baby at about arm's length. Look at the baby's eyes before you begin to speak or sign.
Say "Look" and as they look at you, shift your eyes to your hand as you bring it up from your lap. Then do your spoken word and sign. (In adult sign languages one normally keeps the eyes on the other person, especially on their face but this is a special case because at this time they need to be seeing the signs clearly to learn them properly.)
Bring the signing hand up smoothly from the lap to the sign position and its gesture and its spoken word.
Return the hand half way to the lap then bring it back up and repeat the sign and its spoken word.
Hold it for just a moment then return the hand to your lap.
Whenever the baby makes any gesture that is remotely like any sign immediately copy their gesture yourself ... two times.
If the child does any standard sign immediately repeat the sign properly two times. (This copying of the infants gestures is for recognition of the sign and not for the content to which the sign is to be related.)
Show pleasure with a smile, a good baby coo, and a Thank-You sign.
If possible, have the actual object which the sign is about to be associated readily at your hand to display when you or the baby uses its sign. For example if you are teaching the sign for bottle be sure to have a bottle in and out of your hand and the child's hand repeatedly while the sign for bottle is being formed.
Say and sign the words two times while touching the referred to object or doing the event action.
Repeat these sign routines only two or three times and then do something else that is fun for the baby and wait for a minute or more before doing another sign the baby doesn't already know.
If the baby's attention moves on to some new thing try to adjust your attention and signs to that new thing.
Whenever a baby signs anything respond appropriately and sign Thank-You.
In later lessons start signing with some signs the baby already knows.

The First 30 Signs

Here is a list the first words that children typically learn in spoken English. It is a good starting point for learning signed words too because these concepts have been proven to be useful by the children themselves. Some seemingly non-useful words like doggie or elephant may be helpful a little later because they are so unique and give the child something quite complex to observe which is inherently interesting. Those signs may not be as useful as " Change my diapers." or " Gimme some milk." but they are fun and easy to learn.

Note: Clicking the big - NAME - found beneath each picture will show you a BIG 1,000 kilobite movie of the sign and the clicking the small - name - will show you a compressed 20 kilobit version. You may double click directly on the movie screen to see the movie again. You must use your browser's Go-Back function to return you to this page.

The center of the signing area is the "Jugular notch". Medcyclopaedia
MA - ma
Meaning - A female parent of a child and usually the primary care giver.
Sign - Point the open right-hand, tip of thumb to the ear lobe with the elbow low, pause briefly and then stroke halfway down the side of the jaw and pause a moment.
Comma Delimited Positions - 4,5,6,7,8,9,0 is in the planning stage and is not yet defined.
Hint - Female signs like MA and SHE start beside the ear lobe. The open hand is friendly and in association with the face is a family sign and the palm facing the center indicates that it is a person sign. A deliberate movement with a pause indicates that it is a sign. Later you may need to know the signs for other FAMILY members.
Help - These first words should be spoken and signed two times and then a pause for recognition and perhaps do it again. Thus MA becomes MA-MA with a pause and then MA-MA again. Later it will be shortened to just plain MA.
.
PA - pa
Meaning -
Sign - The vertical open hand with the index finger at top-left of the forehead moves down a bit with a pause at the end.
Hint - All male signs like PA and HE start at the top-left of the forehead. See also PA's-Pa.
Help - At first these signs will not be recognized as relating to things but will simply be copied as gestures in themselves. Infants innately copy sounds and gestures. If you consistently do a given gesture at the moment that some particular thing is happening for the child then those things become associated together at thus the gesture becomes a meaningful sign. The sign becomes a quick stand-in for the event.
.
BABA - baba
Meaning -
Sign - Pointing the tip of the index finger open handed palm to the eye level on the nose and move down to the tip of the nose.
Hint - The hand to the center of the face it seems is the most self referential of the hand made signs. See also ME.
Help - This is the word baby but the child at this age is probably going to pronounce it BABA so that is the way it has been written.
.
TI TI - ti ti
Meaning -
Sign - Closed fist with the thumb extended to the mouth with the elbow held low.
Hint - A natural thumb sucking gesture for nursing that is typically made by an infant but in this case it is standardized into a sign. From an early age use this sign two times just before nursing the baby. It is similar to DRINK which is learned later. Notice the elbow is held low for TITI but in all color symbols the elbow is held high as in MAGENTA.
Help - This is a very useful word for a nursing child to learn because she can then easily learn to ask for whatever else she needs.
.
BOTTLE - bottle
Meaning -
Sign - The horizontally cupped hand is holding an invisible bottle just in front of the mouth. The thumb curls around the invisible cup horizontally.
Hint - This is the general sign for bottle, cup or glass and its liquid contents. Thus the early sign for milk or juice. See DRINK
.
DRINK - drink
Meaning -
Sign - The BOTTLE sign is brought to the corner of the mouth and the palm is then rotated to a vertical position.
Hint - The motion is similar to raising and holding an invisible bottle or a cup to the mouth and then drinking.
.
NIGHT NIGHT - night night
Meaning -
Sign - The flat hand held is against the eyebrows with the elbow held high and then it is pulled down over the eyes.
Hint - The hand is in the SEE position and moves over the eyes and creates darkness. See also LIGHT OFF where the sign also moves from bright to darkness by moving the hand from a LIGHT ON to a LIGHT OFF position.

Help - All of the signs relating to light and color and vision in general have the elbow held high. See also COLORS.
.
MORE - more
Meaning -
Sign - The up-cupped hand at tummy level with arm half way extended is moved up and sideways from tummy level to shoulder level with a closed fist.
Hint - A stack of stuff is being placed in the hand and held. (When teaching this it might work to place some objects in the hand and move them up each time. Do this a couple of times and then do the same words and gestures but without the object in the hand.) Similar to BIG but with a closing hand to show keeping.

Help - Signs relating to objects have the palm turned up as if holding something. .
UH-UH - uh-uh
Meaning -
Sign - Flat open hand held palm out in front of the mouth and pushed out and down a little.
Hint - This sign appears like pushing food away from the mouth. I am full. Similar to NO NO but closer to the face. In this very early usage this sign actually means something more like NO MORE FOOD.
.
NO-NO - no-no
Meaning -
Sign - Flat open hand held palm out with the arm half extended in front of the chest and then pushed out and down a little.
Hint - Pushing something away from the body. I don't want it. Similar to UH-UH but well away from the face. In this very early usage this sign appears to be like pushing a dog away. See also: Yes. The location of this sign starts at the central GREY position.
.
GIM-ME - gim-me
Meaning -
Sign - The hand is held palm-up at arms length and is pulled toward the chest.
Hint - An object is being pulled toward oneself. Same sign as GIVE-YOU but moved toward the chest instead of away. Palm up is the general sign for objects.
.
PICK-UP - pick-up
Meaning -
Sign - Arm fully extended with vertically arched hand thumb up and lifted from below shoulder height to full height and paused.
Hint - This is the natural gesture just before picking up a baby. When the baby makes this natural gesture, sign it two times and pick them up. This method associates the sign and the action in the child's mind. Perhaps follow with a HUG sign and action.
.
PUT-DOWN - put-down
Meaning -
Sign - Fully extended arm vertically flat hand thumb up just below shoulder height and brought down below the waist height and paused. See also GREEN which looks similar but the hand is closed into a fist with the thumb up.
Hint - Similar to PICK-UP, but moving down.
.
DOGGIE - doggie
Meaning -
Sign - The hand pats the hip.
Hint - A common gesture given to dogs when calling them.
.
THANK-YOU - thank you
Meaning -
Sign - Palm up on the lips brought smoothly forward down and fully extended toward the person begin thanked. Similar to HELLO but from the lips.
Hint - Passing a kiss on the palm to the loved one.
.
DIRTY - dirty
Meaning -
Sign - The hand spread open like a claw under the chin is pushed across the chest to the far side.
Hint - Something dirty near the mouth is being pushed away. Similar to UH-UH. The head naturally turns away. The claw shaped hand in any position is a general sign for bad as in ANGRY .
.
DIAPER - diaper
Meaning -
Sign - Clawed hand facing down and bounced upon the diaper area.
Hint - The generalized bad sign touching the problem thing. This sign is actually saying, there is something bothering me in the diaper area. See PEE-PEE.
.
HEAD-HURTS - head-hurts
Meaning -
Sign - Move the clawed-fingered hand to the annoying place and tap.
Hint - The spread clawed hand is the general sign for annoyance and it can be placed wherever the annoyance is indicated. See also BAD.
.
SLEEPY - sleepy
Meaning -
Sign - The head resting on the open hand held palm outwards on the opposite side of the face.
Hint - Like one is sleeping on the hand. Perhaps tilt head and close eyes as part of the sign to help indicate sleeping.
.
BLANKET - blanket
Meaning -
Sign - Close the hand at tummy and move the hand up to top of chest.
Hint - This is like a hand gripping a blanket and pulling it up to the chin.
.
YES - yes
Meaning -
Sign - Open palm held slopping forward from vertical and facing out with the arm half way extended and bring the palm toward the chin a little.
Hint - The open hand is a generalized term for goodness and pulling something toward oneself is also a generalized term for goodness also up is good. One doesn't need to learn these things, as generalizations, at first, only the formation of the individual signs themselves.
.
GOOD - good
Meaning -
Sign - An open palm held vertically facing out and starting at the YES sign ending at the YES sign but with the hand closed into a fist implying permanence.
Hint - It is a YES that is held firm. It is also similar to the HAPPY sign but finishes up further and away from the body.
.
GO - go
Meaning -
Sign - Point the index finger straight forward palm toward the center at half arm extension and then move it to full extension pointing out.
Hint - Moving the pointing finger away from self to where the referred to person should move towards. This sign follows the person, place or thing hand orientation rules. See also COME.
.
COME - come
Meaning -
Sign - Pointing index finger toward the person and pulling it toward the self.
Hint - Hooking finger to something and pulling it towards oneself. See also GIMME.
.
HEY HEY - hey hey
Meaning -
Sign - Hand open facing forward at the touching the head, move out and back bumping the head with each hand oscitation.
Hint - Waving the hand to get attention to say hello and get recognition to ones self. Bumping the side of the head brings their attention to ones person.
.
HELLO - hello
Meaning -
Sign - The palm down hand at the top of the head brought up, forward and out toward the greeted person. This ends with the palm up and extended toward the person.
Hint - A more formal greeting after getting attention with the Hey Hey. The Hello is as if raising the hat in an old fashioned greeting.
.
Hug - hug
Meaning -
Sign - Bring the vertical open hand across the chest to where fingers are holding around the upper arm.
Hint - A natural gesture like hugging a baby to ones chest. Hug. See also PICK UP.
.
BYE BYE - bye bye
Meaning -
Sign - Hand open facing the departing person at full arm extension at shoulder level, move up-open and down-close a bit .
Hint - Patting the other person away. See also GO.
.
ALL GONE - all gone
Meaning -
Sign - From the byebye sign position leave the hand open and turn it towards ones own face out at half arms length.
Hint - The object goes out of sight with the BYE BYE sign and the open hand holds nothing.
.
BATH - bath
Meaning -
Sign - The signing hand .
Hint - Compare to and . .
Help -

Tech - .

Those few signed words may get you through to where the child is speaking enough to make his needs known out loud.

Source - The primary source for the frequency of word use by children is from a list found at: http://aac.unl.edu/VLN1.html

. - - - NEXT - Go to - - - One-Year-Olds . Two-Year-Olds . Colors . Foods . Familys . Stories . - - -.

A DICTIONARY of American Sign Language from Master Tech

-- Click Here --

For a Google - search of current Infant Sign Language

-- Click Here --

Some After Thoughts And Links

Here is an adult language lesson named -- Taxi Baby -- which is an experiment in adults learning a foreign language based on concepts similar to the way a child learns a language.

Finger Spelling In ASL

Liability disclaimer statement: These Probaways contain new and unique information that has been created, tested and retested by me alone. You must approach these findings and materials very carefully as your results may differ greatly from my experience and I can offer no recompensation of any kind for any injuries.

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